AS A HIKER IN the woods checks herself for ticks, for the rest of the school day Christina searched herself continually for matches. She would never again wear clothes with pockets. She would stop carrying a purse. That would foil them.
The nerve of them! Sneaking into Christina’s room, touching her clothes, fingering her pockets, stuffing her handbag, starting rumors!
And they’ll laugh, she thought, because I knew all along and never could convince anybody. Every terrible thing that happened they weaseled out of because they could use their own son to blame it on! That bonfire last winter, when my whole wardrobe was burned in the snow — when everybody blamed me and said I was going island-mad. It was them, I know it was them.
Twice now — at least — the Shevvingtons had skulked through Christina’s room, opened her drawers, handled her clothing, played tricks with fire and matches.
They got Anya by working on her fears, she thought. They won’t do it that way with me. They won’t try to make me afraid. They’ll use rumor. They’ll arrange my world so that other people become afraid of me.
At the end of the day, Robbie, slinking down the hall like her shadow, crept up behind her. His fingers touched her like falling ice cubes. “Robbie,” snapped Christina, “if you hadn’t scared me out there —”
“Listen,” hissed Robbie.
“Stop whispering. You sound like a snake. Nothing but s’s.”
Robbie said, “I’m going to visit my sister Val in the institution. You know, the mental home where Mr. and Mrs. Shevvington talked my parents into putting her? The social worker has to visit a bunch of patients there this afternoon, and he said he’d take me along tomorrow after school. You want to come?”
Val, Val, who was crimson and blue.
Last winter, being punished for something she had not done, Christina had been confined alone in Schooner Inne. And that day, peeking into the empty guest rooms that ringed the tilting balcony, she understood why Mr. and Mrs. Shevvington owned a guest house, but did not advertise nor accept guests. Each room was a victim. No flesh and blood would occupy those rooms. They were already occupied.
With ghosts.
The Shevvingtons had even furnished the rooms to match. That was one of their hobbies: admiring their guest rooms, cherishing the memories of their collection of empty girls.
Anya had been number 8; the room meant for her had been fragile like lace, its carpets and cushions streaked with silver and gray — like storm clouds.
Anya had been saved. Christina and Blake had accomplished that.
But Robbie Armstrong’s sister, Val, whom the Shevvingtons had chosen the year before —Val had been lost.
Number 7 was Val. Carpet blue as the sea in summer, walls rich violet, like sunset. Dark like a crimson flower in a crystal vase. This was the living Val: Val before the Shevvingtons. And now Val was mindless on a narrow cot in a quiet hospital.
Or was she mindless? Would she have clues? Would she have knowledge? Would she be able to say to Christina, from the fragments of her left in the real world, This is how to stop the Shevvingtons?
Room 8, meant for Anya’s ghost — stormy and fallen — could be redecorated. It could become Christina’s, a room of fire and islands.
Seventeen days were enough.
The minute school was out, everybody converged on Vicki’s aunt’s beach to study the grounds and make the important decisions. Most of the girls stood around arguing about who would bring the volleyball net and who would supply the radios and cassette players. Most of the boys scoured the beach for logs, pieces of smashed boat, steps off dock ladders, and other debris. Christina forgot Mrs. Shevvington. She loved being outdoors. Anything to do with the beach and the sea was home to Christina.
Christina and Jonah climbed over seaweed-slippery rocks, dragging wood, until the pile was taller than any of them. “Now that,” said Christina, surveying the mountain of wood, “will make a real fire.”
“Ssssshhhhhh!” said Jonah. He looked around uneasily. “Don’t talk so loud, you dumbo,” he whispered.
“Why not?”
“Didn’t you see Mrs. Shevvington looking at you? Her eyes stuck to you like chewing gum, Chrissie. There may be only seventeen more days till the end of the school year,” said Jonah, “but there’s next year to worry about, too. Eighth grade. Think of all they could plan over the summer, Chrissie. Be careful.”
Eighth grade. Room 8.
Did it mean something? Was it fate?
“The Shevvingtons don’t scare me anymore,” she said, which was a lie. “Besides, they won’t be here next year. He’s getting a job in Chicago, and they’re putting Schooner Inne on the market.” She looked down at the sand at her feet. She was foot-doodling. She often wrote her initials in the sand. But these were not initials. They were —
“Leaving?” repeated Jonah. He frowned. “But they have such a perfect setup here. The town adores them. They can get away with anything. Why would they leave?”
Candle flames. She had drawn fire. Was Mrs. Shevvington right? Who had drawn those English book doodles? The memory of the candle in the coffee can came back to her. Her own urgent voice saying fire had to come first.
Christina erased her sand marks. Her leg was shaking, as if she had just fallen or nearly had an accident. “Who cares?” she said. “They’re going.” Her head filled with candles and arson, with slippery cliffs and tumbling rocks.
Gretch was promising to bring a badminton set.
“Be sure to buy extra birdies,” ordered Vicki. Vicki had a small notebook in which she was writing down everybody’s promises. “See, Robbie,” she said, “this is how it’s done. When your hidden leadership qualities rise up, be sure to bring a notebook along.”
This is what they had learned in seventh grade: how to taunt each other. Mrs. Shevvington treated the seventh-graders like pets. Dogs to be kicked — like Robbie. Dogs to be put on a leash — like Vicki. Vicki would do anything Mrs. Shevvington told her to.
Jennie said eagerly that she had a shiny new croquet set; she would bring her croquet set.
“Nobody wants to play croquet,” said Vicki scornfully, “it’s slow and pointless. Don’t bring your old croquet set.”
The delight vanished from Jennie’s eyes. Shame replaced it. Jennie hung her head and scuffled her old sneakers in the sand.
Vicki and her best friend Gretch were “in.” This was a phenomenon Christina had read about, but never experienced till this year, as the island had so few children. Seventh-graders angled for the chance to share a table with Vicki and Gretch. Vicki and Gretch were given extra desserts. Their opinions were sought and their jokes laughed at.
Now Jennie was the joke.
Fat, ugly Katy stepped up close to the important notebook. “I’ll bring the marshmallows,” she offered. “And I can cut plenty of green twigs to toast them on. We have lots of good bushes on our property.”
Vicki smiled. She touched her own silk-smooth hair, admired her own slender ankles. “How suitable, Katy,” she said, in the smooth, vicious voice she had learned from Mrs. Shevvington. “Marshmallows match your face.”
Christina lost her temper. “I’ll give you a marshmallow face!” she yelled. She hit Vicki.
Jonah pulled Christina off. “Don’t give her a bloody lip,” he said, “or you’ll be in trouble again. Less than three weeks to go, Chrissie. Stay good!”
“I don’t get into trouble!” said Christina. How could her only ally talk like that? Jonah knew the truth; had always known the truth. “The Shevvingtons force me into it.”
“Oh ho!” said Vicki. “Now you’re going to blame poor Mr. and Mrs. Shevvington because you hit me. I’ll tell you something, Christina Romney. Not everybody believes that the Shevvingtons’ son did all the stuff you said he did.” Vicki covered her swelling mouth with a manicured hand. “Like that time your entire winter wardrobe burned in a bonfire in the snow? You can’t blame that on their son, Christina. We know better.” Vicki raised her voice to reach her audience. “You’re an island girl. They’re all half crazy. You set that fire yourself.”
The sea crept wetly around their sneakers, slurping at the dry land. The seventh grade watched Christina. It seemed to her that she was alone, and they were together; she was small and thin, and they were a crowd. A mob.
The force of their bodies and faces and eyes and voices rolled over her like a great drowning wave. Now they were a single creature: the enemy. A group to push her backward into Candle Cove and watch, laughing, while the tide came in over her broken bones.
Christina ran.
She had never done such a thing before. She was the fighter, the one who never gave up. Alone she ran, over the cliffs, among the craggy boulders, past the millionaires’ mansions. Anything to get away, to be safe.
Her greatest fear in life was that she would be alone: without friends.
I should have given my friends a chance to speak up, she thought miserably. I played into the Shevvingtons’ hands again. They want me friendless and running. And they’ve got it.
With her fists she rubbed away the tears that rolled over her eyes like fog over the island. So many victims. So much pain. All caused by Mr. and Mrs. Shevvington — humiliating, manipulating, taunting.
“But it doesn’t matter now,” Christina said to the sea gulls who floated in the air currents above her. “They’re leaving!” she yelled to the barn swallows who dipped and swerved over the green meadow grass. “It’s over!”
Christina went on past the old wharf that had once protruded a quarter mile into the ocean and was nothing now but piers sticking up like the feet of drowning men. She ran all the way to the storm cottages.
Many years before, in 1938, a great hurricane crossed New England. When it was over, buildings had been tossed to the ground in splinters. Back then, summer people came for only a few weeks, so they didn’t care about quality building techniques. After the hurricane, the cottage owners made walls of broken boards and nailed on roofs that leaked and swayed.
The storm cottages looked as if they had been built with bent nails by a beginning Girl Scout troop. They tilted, with crazy stairs and mismatched windows. Some had plumbing and some didn’t. Some had electricity and some didn’t. It was hard to believe they were now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars because they were ocean-front.
Today, the storm cottages were still closed for the winter, shutters fastened over the windows.
Christina opened the shutters to the window on the sagging front porch of her favorite storm cottage. She eased the window up, and slipped inside. The storm cottage was painted white: ceilings, walls, doors, and even floors. The furniture was winter-draped in white sheets. A crack of sun came through the window Christina had opened, like a huge golden pencil.
Christina tiptoed through. In the funny old kitchen there were no counters, just a beaten-up table. The bathroom had a stand-up shower crammed in the corner, but the water was turned off. Upstairs a miniature bedroom held a bed with bare metal springs. Christina lay down and it was as comfortable as you would expect metal springs to be.
She knew these summer people. They came in August. And they did not rent it out the rest of the time. She could use the storm cottage for her hide-out these last seventeen days. Actually, day seventeen was nearly over. Sixteen days, then. Who would hide out with me? she wondered.
Michael and Benjamin Jaye were the only other island children at Schooner Inne now.
On Burning Fog, Christina and Michael had been good friends, but the mainland pulled them apart. Michael was such a good athlete that he had already moved up the social ladder, and was important, because everybody knew he would be captain of everything one day, winning games against old rivals. Michael would laugh at her if she suggested a hideaway and Christina had been laughed at enough today.
Benjamin was out of the question. Benj was a sophomore, two years and six months older than Christina. If she told Benj about the storm cottage, the two years and six months between them would seem like a century. “Chrissie, that’s trespassing,” he would say in his heavy, slow, islander’s voice.
“Not really,” Christina would argue. “I’ve always done it. Besides, it’s just a storm cottage. Practically public property.”
Slowly a frown would materialize on Benj’s forehead. Benj did everything slowly. “Christina,” he would say reprovingly. He probably wouldn’t stop her, and he probably wouldn’t tell, because he wanted her to help him raise money for Disney World, but he certainly wouldn’t hide out with her.
That left Jonah. But he was being poopy. Don’t fight, don’t start things. Why share a hideaway with him?
She let her mind drift over Blake, pretending she could live here with him. Handsome, perfect Blake. Anya’s boyfriend, however. Anya’s rescuer, too. Blake had taken Anya away from the Shevvingtons, stashing her with some relative of his in the city while he finished up at boarding school.
The winter before, Christina had had such a crush on Blake! The crush had left her panting and trembling, dizzy and excited. Blake, of course, had not noticed. Eighteen-year-olds did not pay attention to the emotions of thirteen-year-olds. But Christina knew how love felt now, and Jonah did not inspire love. Jonah was just Jonah.
She sighed. Blake would be too busy driving his sports car and dressing in his catalog Maine clothing to bother with games in a storm cottage.
Christina checked the kitchen drawer. (There was only one drawer in the whole cottage.) Cheap forks, knives, and spoons; a spatula, a steak knife, can opener, and screwdriver. On a shelf were dented pots, ancient plastic plates, and a lemonade pitcher. Christina peeked under the sink. One squirt of dish soap, one stained sponge, and a box of kitchen matches.
I could have a cookout, thought Christina. No. People would see the smoke and investigate. Besides, then Benji would be right. It’s one thing to creep in and out. It’s another thing entirely to cook a hamburger in the fireplace.
Christina set the kitchen table for one and pretended to have pancakes, bacon, orange juice, and grapefruit halves with extra spoonfuls of sugar. I’m thirteen and playing house, she thought. This is so silly. In seventh grade, you’re supposed to grow up, not down.
She put everything away exactly as she had found it.
Her bad moods never lasted long and this one was gone. Pleased with her hideaway, Christina decided to go make friends with the seventh grade again. She slid out the window, tucked the shutter in, and ran back down the cliffs.
Far away, in the cupola of Schooner Inne, sun glinted off a pair of binoculars.