A little later, out on the island, John Mallory gathered his family in the kitchen.
“This is crazy,” he said as he paced the room. “I try for a little country vacation with my family, and before I know it my son’s defying thugs, rescuing maidens in distress, and asking me to take part in some kind of Babylonian witch hunt. Do you think it’s all happening because I started reading Macbeth?”
“We have to be sensible about this, John,” Anne Mallory suggested. “I don’t doubt that Chip heard something in this house last night — you heard something too — but it all depends on how much credibility we allow Lawson Sinclair. He seems very reliable, and I presume his academic qualifications are all in order. But from what we’ve heard from Chip, none of his speculations about ancient curses haunting this place seem very believable.”
“Well, there’s something else,” Mr. Mallory said. He put down his bottle and pulled up a chair at the kitchen table. “I have a confession to make. I told you I heard some odd sounds in this house last night. Well, they weren’t just odd; they were downright disconcerting. I didn’t want to mention it, Anne — I thought you’d think I was imagining it — but there was an incredibly loud ticking, the sound of a woman crying, and a kind of gonging sound that might come from some very large clock.”
“That’s exactly what I heard!” Chip cut in. “And it came from behind the door in my room. I also saw some lights in the tower.”
“Lights in the tower? You didn’t mention that,” his father said.
“Well, I forgot. The police questioning kind of freaked me out and I forgot that little detail. But everything else happened just as I said.”
“I think this is complete nonsense,” Lee declared. “I bet it was just wind in the attic, rattling things around. But it’ll be fun to pretend we’re ghostbusters and tiptoe around here at midnight, scaring each other to death. Right now, if you don’t mind, I’m going for a walk with May and Sheba. How did you like the clothes I fixed her up with?”
“Oh, lovely, dear,” her mother said. “It’s very generous of you.”
“God, after seeing where she lives I wish I could do more! Crummy little shacks, garbage all over the place, and people who look like horror movie extras. I thought places like that only existed in Chip’s favourite slasher flicks.”
“Be careful on your walk,” her mother told her. “And don’t be too long. I want you to hear what our guests say about all of this.”
“I have the whole night to talk to them, Mother.”
Chip watched his sister go, and then stole a glimpse of himself in the kitchen mirror. He wanted to have a shower and change before Sabrina arrived, and it was getting late. The sun was sinking low over the lake, brushing the treetops with light, and their guests were due any minute. He excused himself and ran upstairs.
In his room, he hesitated, glancing warily at his bed, the desk, and the chairs, and then focussing on the shut cupboard doors. Behind the one on the right, he knew, was an array of his clothes. And behind the other? He approached the locked door with some trepidation, pressed his ear against the wood panelling, and listened.
Nothing. Not even the hint of a sound.
Perhaps Lee was right and both he and his father had heard something quite explicable; old houses can make strange sounds at night. They might have heard the vibrating of some old dinner gong, or of a musical instrument, long discarded; a rat disturbing pots and pans; the wind howling through a crack in the walls.
Chip grabbed some fresh clothes and a couple of towels and headed for the bathroom. He showered and finished blow-drying his hair, then made sure his breath was okay. He was just deciding how high to button his khaki shirt when he heard voices downstairs. Lawson and Sabrina must have arrived. He gulped, angry at himself for being nervous; he checked himself one last time in the mirror, and went on down.
He found them in the conservatory: his parents, Lawson, and Sabrina herself, cool and suave, sitting close to the door. The girl smiled when she saw him, got up quickly, and kissed him on the cheek.
“Hi Chip! Thank you for finding my horse,” she said.
Chip blushed despite himself, mumbled a few words, gulped, and retreated. But it didn’t help: from across the room she seemed just as dazzling. She was wearing green stretch leggings, and a white, gold-embroidered shirt dress, and she’d put her hair up, showing the fine, clean lines of her face. For the next few minutes she sat there, looking restless under everyone’s admiration, and now and then moving her platform espadrilles as if she were ready to walk the runway.
“The police have passed along some information to Lawson here,” Mr. Mallory explained to Chip, bringing him temporarily back to earth. “They’ve caught Dalton. He had a pickup truck full of goods and suitcases and was heading for highway 401. It looks like he was preparing to hide out somewhere. Unfortunately, the other guy got away.”
“That swarthy, pretend-suave, sneaky, little guy? I liked him even less,” Mrs. Mallory said. “Ugh! Where do they make these people?”
“We have to be careful,” Lawson put in. “You folks in particular. Dalton admitted to the police that Garth Laberge was bent on revenge, and that he knows where you’re staying. It should be all right, though. You have a dog now.” He smiled and nodded to Chip. “Or at least, your little country friend does. And I’ll be staying the night, so you’ll have a spare hand. I brought some things with me, too. Things as simple as extra flashlights and as complicated as old spells.”
He patted the black leather briefcase in his lap.
“As for me,” Sabrina told them, “I brought a sleeping bag. I’ve slept in the library here quite a few times in my life. One more time won’t hurt.”
“You didn’t really live here when you were younger, did you?” Mrs. Mallory asked. “Not even in the summer.”
Sabrina wore a thoughtful look. “No, there were problems. It’s painful, but I do have to fill you in about the past. And I will — but there’s something else, more immediate, something I’ve been dying to tell you, Chip. You have a connection with my grandfather!”
“Really?” Chip leaned forward; he was getting used to her beauty, and all ablaze at her interest in him.
“You know Quicksilver was stolen by those horrible men last year. I was so disgusted I flew to Switzerland. I decided I never wanted to come to this backwater again. But when Grandfather had another heart attack, the doctors advised me to pay a visit.
“I got here and started taking care of him. Then the other day, out of the blue, Grandfather told me that some visitors had spotted Quicksilver over near Bascombe, and for that reason — and a few others — he was lending them Freya’s Island. To tell you the truth, I felt rather angry with him; I thought he shouldn’t be inviting strangers here to my grandmother’s house. I ran into you, Chip, and you mentioned the horse, and then you escaped before I could talk to you — and I complained to Grandfather. That was when he told me his dream.”
“His dream? What was that?” Mr. Mallory asked. The others leaned forward eagerly as she began to explain.
“Grandfather had a dream about Quicksilver a few days before you arrived, although he only told me about it after I described meeting you, Chip. In the dream a human figure led the horse right out of the lake and up on the shore of this island. My grandfather described this figure as a ‘magic boy’ — a young man about your age, Chip, although he didn’t necessarily look like you. When I asked Grandfather what he meant by a ‘magic boy,’ he explained that the figure in his dream was aglow with light, bright, shimmering, beautiful light. And when he looked at the boy, Grandfather had — as he tells it — a real glow of well-being, a feeling that the whole universe was in good order, and would always be so. Which is amazing, given the terrible gloom he’s lived in for many years.”
Chip nodded, trying to be cool. But she was looking at him with gratitude and curiosity. He felt as if he could fly around the room.
“I want to introduce you to my grandfather, Chip. He wants to meet you. He thinks you’re probably psychic — at least a little. Otherwise, why should you have seen Quicksilver? Nobody else did; and I don’t think he ever escaped from those creeps. Anyway, I hope you don’t mind; he’s a strong man, Grandfather is, but I really think you might help ease his last days. Something tells me this was meant to be.”
Chip bent his head and nodded, greatly relieved that Lee wasn’t there. He could imagine his sister’s ironical glance, her scathing imitations of Sabrina’s solemnity.
Lawson pointedly cleared his throat. “The background to all this must be told — it will make everything much clearer. You see, Dr. Gwynn brought his wife Freya to this island, and even named it after her because she loved it so much. She was pregnant with their second child when she came here, but, unfortunately, the infant died. She and Dr. Gwynn had just come back from the Near East and she had picked up something there — a fever perhaps; there’s a bit of mystery about that even now, and I think only Dr. Gwynn knows the truth. At any rate, when the baby died at birth, Freya Gwynn was terribly depressed. And she was destined not to get over it. She committed suicide in this house a few months later.”
Light from the setting sun poured into the garden outside and looked spectacular and almost artificial as it illuminated the roses, the violets, and the marigolds. Just beyond the flowers, the forest path was filling up with darkness.
“My mother, Marta, their first child, was a little girl at the time,” Sabrina continued the explanation. “Father sent her off to Europe to live with her aunt. She grew up there and married a Swedish man, a Shakespearean actor. I was born in Sweden, and I’ve never really lived over here, although I’ve been back many times. Both my parents are dead now, killed in a plane crash some years ago. Our family has had its share of tragedy.”
A moment of silence ensued, and then Lawson continued.
“Unfortunately, Dr. Gwynn’s family tragedy coincided with his academic disgrace. As I told you, Chip, he’d espoused archaeological finds from Larsa — artefacts that were considered spurious. Some of them are in this room right now.”
Everyone glanced round at the statues: three of them were nearly four or five feet high and depicted grotesque figures — a half-human lion, a giant bird, and the head of some god or goddess. Even the more ordinary bowls and jugs and implements looked very ancient and strange in the curious evening light.
“But it’s all authentic. Dr. Gwynn was right all along. Everyone admits it now. But he never forgave his critics and academic enemies.”
“I don’t blame him in the least,” Chip’s father said.
“The trouble is, he hasn’t escaped from the past,” Lawson told them. “He still carries it with him. He’s become a recluse and a haunted man. And in trying to escape from whatever’s haunting him, he’s made the situation worse. I hate to sound melodramatic, but the old man seems to have stirred up forces that have some kind of terrible power over him — evil forces. If he had a dream about a saviour boy it’s because he needs one. Not necessarily you, Chip, but someone who can drive away the forces and give him peace.”
“I want to do that. I want to help very badly,” Chip told them, proclaiming his intentions despite the skeptical look his parents exchanged.
For some time no one spoke, then through the glass panels they saw Sheba spring into view in the garden. The dog stopped among the flowerbeds and stood at attention, gazing off in the direction of the tower path. Lee and May appeared and began to fuss with the dog, which responded to them by bending its head and licking at their hands. The girls waved to the group in the conservatory, and Lee walked over to open the sliding door. At that point the dog, still distracted, began to bark. Lee stopped and turned to look down the path, where Sheba’s attention seemed fixed. May came over to the conservatory and she slid the door open.
“Someone’s over there, I think. By the tower. She’s not a very good watchdog — she’s way too friendly — but I think she’s spotted someone.”
Mr. Mallory sprang to his feet. He hesitated a moment, then grabbed Lawson by the arm. “I don’t like this at all,” he said. “Why don’t we go over there and have a look?”