Pieces of Hate (A Wendover House Mystery Book 4)

My eyes
opened, looking for danger before my conscious mind knew I was alarmed. There
was a moment of disorientation before I realized that I was in my
great-grandfather’s colonial bed with only the light from my watch and the wind
for company.

The fire I
had lit before bed had burned down, leaving only the faint smell of soot. The
moon was near full, but still obscured by clouds so there was no more than a
faint glow to show me where the windows were.

I listened. I
looked at the shades of black. Nothing was there.
Nothing at
all.
Whatever I had thought I heard or
felt, it wasn’t
real
.

A flash at
the corner of my eye.
I rolled my
head.
Light on the window—
strobing
,
distant.
The lighthouse of Goose Haven, I realized. Could that be what
had awakened me?

I got out of
bed. I didn’t tiptoe but I walked softly. My socks were still on and they
helped muffle my steps when I left the rug beside the bed. Down the stairs I
went,
cellphone in one hand and lamp in the other. I walked
to one side of the steps, hoping it would minimize creaking. No one was there,
of course. But still I wanted to be silent.

Step.
Listen.
Step.
Listen. I stopped on the landing and held my breath. But there wasn’t the
smallest sound beyond the wind
razoring
through the
garden and the last violent spatters of rain at the
uncurtained
window and the thudding of my heart. The house and I held our breath and
shuddered at the brief assault, but nothing else happened.

Ghosts, I
thought again, but banished the word immediately. I was ashamed it even crossed
my mind, and the violence with which I rejected the possibility showed me how
frightened I really was.

Down the
steps I went on tiptoe until I reached the bottom. Then I smelled it. Felt it.
Saw it in the lamp’s brief, wavering light.
Fresh air, a
small drought creeping over the floor and then up my body as it encountered the
obstacle of my legs and decided to explore my trembling body.

It was coming
from the kitchen.

My eyes finally opened and I wondered groggily why I had been dreaming
of my first night in Wendover House and what had woken me.

Nature answered with a violent flash of light which left a steady,
luminescent glow in my window that was obvious even in the rain.

Which had not been predicted.
We were
supposed to be enjoying clear skies all week.

“What the devil is that?
Kelvin?”
I
whispered, looking for my cat. As expected, he was gone. Barney whined from the
depths of his doggie bed. He didn’t like thunder.

Sighing, I got to my feet and went to the window to see how bad the
storm was and what was causing the weird greenish glow. The storm was strong
and heavy with rain, though the wind wasn’t all that forceful. Perhaps my heavy-headed
hydrangeas would survive.

There was indeed a strange grayish-green glow coming from the beach,
which was bright even though it was raining like something from the Old
Testament.

“What do you think?”

Storms in the islands mean something—and not just that the weatherman
has goofed again. Storms are omens and harbingers. On an island, evil and good
fortune both arrive
by sea. I pay special attention to bad
weather. It rarely brings the kind of messages that come with candy and
flowers.

It seemed an appropriate moment, so I said a quick prayer of thanks
that the house now had electricity. The situation was uncanny enough without
creeping around by candlelight.

I didn’t dress, but the bathrobe was ignored in favor of a raincoat.
Slippers were traded for rain boots. Armed with a flashlight, I headed for the bedroom
door. Barney galloped after me, less as a gallant protector than as one seeking
protection.

“Kelvin!”
I called and was not surprised to hear
a meow coming from the front door.

The house is old, its doors and windows heavy. The hinges didn’t
shriek as I pulled the door open, but it felt like they should have.

Barney doesn’t like storms but when Kelvin darted out, Barney
followed. The one with the flashlight and bad eyesight brought up the rear.

Rot and ozone.
The
smell of damnation
.

I’m agnostic about a lot of things but have always believed in
statistics. The average freak factor for the “impossible” on the island was ten
for ten. Something was happening down on the beach.

I had hoped to see a light at either of the two cottages below, indicating
that someone else was awake. Ben or even Mary would be very welcome just then.
But both houses were dark, so the three of us were left to make our way to the
beach.

The glow began to fade just as I passed Ben’s cottage. It was hardly
evident when I finally reached the stony beach. All that was left to mark the
spot was a small chest—about the size of a large jewelry box—encrusted with
barnacles. And as I knelt, the unseasonably cold water drumming on my head in a
painful manner, the last of the green light died.

The box was filthy and I didn’t want to touch it.
Because
it was filthy.
And because I just didn’t want to touch it.

But if I left it to fetch some rags to wrap it in, would the tide haul
it away again?

As I said, storms in the islands mean something. They are harbingers
and omens. Ignore them at your peril.

Muttering under my breath, I pulled off my coat and wrapped the box in
it. I had to wrestle with the strange seaweed trailing out of the surf that
clung to it like a stubborn octopus. By the time it was free, my nightgown was giving
a great impression of being my second skin, huddling as close as it could to my
shivering body as the rain attacked it.

“Come on, guys,” I said, turning to go back up the hill. “I’m getting
soaked here.”

As though only just noticing his wet fur, Kelvin streaked for the
house. Barney doesn’t streak so he trotted beside me as I jogged up the trail
to the shelter of the family home. In my arms, the box felt warm and smelled
unpleasantly of dead things.

“What the hell are you?” I asked it.

I prospered in love and found the
perfect
wyfe
. Tales of the family and island are
queer and abundant, but the protection they offer suits. And she is a comely
woman for all her strangeness and
styll
young enough
to bear children yet so it may be that I shall have a son.

—from the
unbound journal of
Halfbeard

To stave off
feelings of uselessness, I had started writing a blog that spring about island
life—wildlife, regional stories, seafaring songs, and legends. It was unedited
by a third party so people were getting me without any grammatical
intervention. A couple of historical groups had picked me up anyway and I had
gained a nice following of loyal readers. Voluntary donations weren’t making me
rich but they paid for blueberry pie and coffee. Once in a while someone would
contact me about writing a freelance piece for some online magazine or
periodical. Things were working out.

Except
I hadn’t written a word all that week.

It was to be
hoped that when the encrustations were scraped away there would be something
interesting underneath the living muck—a cache of ammunition from a warship, a
map box, maybe some kind of top secret dispatch left over from the war. Or a …
an anything that I could turn into a story because I was running on creative
fumes and coffee, and the java had just given out and the ferry didn’t come
until Tuesday.

It wasn’t that
there were no more stories to tell about Little Goose, but good taste and a
continuing desire for privacy for myself and my neighbors had kept me from delving
too deeply into my family’s private experiences, especially the occult ones,
though they were by far the most colorful, even lurid, subject I could imagine.
However, telling their stories would bring out the kooks—the paranormal
investigators and treasure hunters. Worse, any talk about a sea monster could
bring marine biologists, legitimate scientists that could attract legitimate
and popular media. So I was down to migrating puffins and porpoises and
cranberry bogs, none of which interested me particularly.

A smart woman
wouldn’t have brought the box home. Except…. Well, I just couldn’t have left it
behind. It could have
anything
in it
and who could resist such a mystery? Still, I didn’t want to touch the box
myself. It was somehow sinister and personally threatening. Even if it had
arrived on a silver salver carried by a butler straight off the Queen Mary, I
wouldn’t have liked it. Fortunately other people aren’t as squeamish.

As soon as it
was a decent hour I would call my neighbor, Ben Livingston. He was a thriller
writer and this sort of thing was his meat and potatoes. He would probably be
enthusiastic about scraping the disgusting barnacles off the box and seeing
what was inside. Ben wasn’t plagued by intuition.

To entertain
myself while I waited, I got out my digital camera and took some pictures of
the box. To add drama I propped a damask pillow up behind the box where it sat
dripping on the kitchen counter.

6:02.

Finally I went
back to the library and pretended to dust the bookshelves.

The hands of
the library clock finally worked themselves around to the seven and I felt that
I could finally summon my neighbor who was usually an early riser. Barney and
Kelvin had finished breakfast and were having a nap—I fear that Kelvin’s
sleeping habits have rubbed off on the dog—but Kelvin’s ears twitched when I
picked up the phone, telling me that he was at least in part still tuned in to
the waking world.

“Hi, Ben.”

“Good morning.
Quite a storm last night.”
His
voice was scratchy with disuse, but he seemed alert and not freaked out by
seeing weird lights.

People in the islands have embraced a sort of fatalism about the
unpredictable weather even when it conflicts with other, more widely held
ideologies of science and reason. Stuff just happens here.

Or maybe he had slept through the greenish glowing stuff.

“Yes, it was. And it washed up something strange on the beach.”

“Not a body, I trust.” He wasn’t joking. There had been a body last
January.

“Nope.
Some kind of small chest all crusted
over with barnacles and things. I thought, since it could be Davy Jones’ locker
or something, that maybe you would want to be here when I open it.” That was
supposed to be a joke but I knew the moment the words left my mouth that Ben
wouldn’t take it that way.

“Absolutely.
I’m on my
wa
—” The line went dead before he finished speaking. No
time to ask him to bring coffee.