Stormy Cove (9 page)

CHAPTER 12

A drowsy Lori was having breakfast in her bathrobe the next morning when the side door was yanked open. These sudden intrusions always made her wince.

“Paper!” a voice rang out, which explained the disruption of her privacy but didn’t restore it. She quickly combed her hair with her fingers and peeked around the corner. The paperboy, a freckled kid in oversized running shoes, brandished the
Cape Lone Courier
.

“You’re in it,” he exclaimed. “Page four.”

She made a face. “Will it ruin my day?”

The boy seemed baffled but then laughed.

“No, no, it says you took pictures of Justin Timberlake when he was in Vancouver. I’m a huge fan.”

Aha, Will Spence had sniffed around her website.

“A fan in Stormy Cove! I would love to have told Justin. He’s interested in things like that.”

The kid beamed. She pressed two dollars into his hand and threw the paper on the table. Best to get this over with quick.

First the picture. Well done, she found. She didn’t look like a ghost or ten years older. That was something. But the caption! “Lorelei Finning Wants to Succumb to the Fascination of the North.”

Not off to a good start.

Sorry, St. John’s! The well-known Vancouver photographer Lorelei Finning has snubbed Newfoundland’s capital and intends to spend several months in our neck of the woods. The result will be a coffee table book portraying the faces of our families, the boats of our fishermen, and the traditions of our everyday life.

She skimmed over the rest of the article—Justin Timberlake was actually mentioned—until she landed on a passage.

Incidentally, the name
Lorelei
is part of a legend where a beautiful mermaid would sit on a rock above the Rhine River in Germany, combing her golden hair and bewitching the fishermen in their boats. They were so besotted that they didn’t watch out for dangerous whirlpools and were pulled under to their doom. Their ships were wrecked on the rocks. So fishermen, you’d better watch out!

Lori stared at the words. She could see they were meant to be funny, but that was cold comfort. This wretched name would hound her all her life. She pushed the paper away. She was furious at Spence, furious at herself for not changing her name by now, and furious—yet again—at her mother for foisting it upon her.

Lisa Finning didn’t have to listen to constant allusions to
her
name. For these dumb jokes to follow her all the way to Stormy Cove, the end of the Earth! But her anger also led to feelings of guilt. Her mother was all the family she had.

She recalled how her mother had rescued her in Germany. She’d shown up out of the blue on the estate. She could still picture her shocked face and hear her saying, “My dear child, I don’t recognize you”—words that Lori could have said to herself every day in front of the mirror. Skinny, hollow cheeked, dark rings under her eyes, the corners of her mouth turned down. This was another person, not her. As soon as she got her alone, her mother said, “You’re coming home with me to Canada and the boy’s coming too.” Lori knew she was right. She was afraid that Volker would try to get in the way, but amazingly, he didn’t. She only found out after the fact that he’d already uncoupled himself from her in heart and mind. And he wasn’t the type who’d fight her for their child—she had to grant him that.

“Do what you think is right,” he’d said. His going-away present.

Why in the world was all this resurfacing now? The morning had begun so peacefully. The sun’s rays made the ice crystals sparkle out on the cove. The sky dissolved into a rich cobalt blue. Great weather for pictures. She’d wanted to e-mail Mona Blackwood her first update today, but that would have to wait. A quick shower and out the door.

A snowmobile pulling up at the house spiked her plans. The driver hadn’t even put on a helmet.

Noah.

He didn’t come to the door, just stayed put.

Did he expect her to come out?

That’s just what she did, of course, putting on her winter jacket and beret. She stuck her head out the door.

“Do you want to see me?”

He came nearer.

“Going to Great Sacred Island on the Ski-Doo today.”

“The Isle of Demons?”

“Yes. Today’s your big chance. Ice is solid, but for how long is anyone’s guess.”

“Right away?”

“In an hour.”

He’d already turned around, apparently in a hurry. But then he came back with a Ski-Doo suit.

“Put this on. It’ll be cold.”

She caught the bundle and went back inside.

Her skin tingled after the shower. Maybe it was the body lotion, maybe her anticipation. The Isle of Demons. Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval.

Banished to an isolated island for disobeying. Love, disaster, death, rescue. Maybe Lori would be the first woman after Marguerite to ever set foot on the Isle of Demons.

She checked the time. Twenty minutes left. She absolutely had to drop in on Patience. She trudged to her neighbor’s house and knocked before entering. She still couldn’t bring herself to just barge in.

Patience was doing the dishes. Lori hadn’t seen a dishwasher in any of the homes. Patience must have seen her coming—her kitchen window provided a perfect view of Lori’s comings and goings.

“Up so early?” Patience said to welcome her. “Did it get too late last night?”

Lori assumed her neighbor knew exactly when she’d come home, but eagerly picked up on it.

“Oh, I’m not a night person at all,” she allowed, “and I got a few good photos in the can. I’d like to thank you again for helping me.”

“Helping? I made it harder for you, I—”

“No, no way do I want you to think that. I’m so glad to have you as a neighbor, I feel so much . . .” She wanted to say “safer,” but Patience might take that as a criticism of Stormy Cove.

“. . . more at home here,” she said.

Patience smiled, her bright face blushing. “Sketches were never my strong point.”

“But you make those wonderful bags and wall hangings!”

“Who told you about that?”

“One of the girls in the pub.”

Patience changed the subject. “Did Vince show you the way home?”

“No, Mavis did. She was about to leave anyway and persuaded Vince I was in safe hands with her. Luckily, she drove pretty slow, if you take my meaning.”

Their eyes met, and Lori thought she could read a conspiratorial understanding in Patience’s eyes. Then she remembered Noah.

“I’ve got to go, unfortunately. Noah wants to take me to Great Sacred Island today.”

Patience looked alarmed. “To the Isle of Demons? That’s much too dangerous. The ice out there is really cracking up.”

“Noah says it’s still stable enough.”

“What does he know? Nobody takes a snowmobile out to the Isle of Demons this time of year. Twenty years ago, a whole family fell through the ice.”

Her face got even redder, not out of embarrassment this time but anger. When Lori didn’t say anything, she redoubled her efforts.

“You know the island’s cursed, eh? Everybody knows that. Nobody would go over there!”

If she hadn’t spoken those last words, Lori would have been inclined to take her concern about the ice seriously. But she was wary of superstition’s firm grip on the people of Stormy Cove.

“I’ll discuss it with Noah,” she said to placate her. “And I certainly won’t take any unnecessary risks. My mom wouldn’t like it one bit. I promised to call her this evening.”

Her words were meant as a conciliatory ploy; she’d never have played the mom card otherwise. But she saw they hadn’t been enough to assuage Patience.

Time was running out. Lori felt that tingling sensation again.

“I really must go, sorry, but thanks for the warning. Really, I truly appreciate your concern. Bye.”

Patience was polite enough to respond.

Lori felt uneasy as she left the house. But the moment she sat at Noah’s back on the snowmobile, her qualms evaporated.

“Most years the ice isn’t strong enough for a snowmobile,” he explained. “The pack ice is loose, there are channels all through it. But sometimes the ice gets firm right up to the land so you can cross. Believe me, I wouldn’t do it if it was dangerous.”

She believed him. People who had to survive on the ocean knew it inside out and respected it too much for any foolishness.

They came round some hills on soft snow and sloped down onto the well-frozen pack ice. Lori felt the change at once. They were constantly thrown from one side to the other. The snowmobile bounced over sharp edges raised by ice blocks grinding together, creating a surface like sandpaper. Bumps ambushed them from beneath a deceptive layer of fine snow. Noah had to constantly evade the larger drifts, and Lori felt like a polo player on a horse. Start. Stop. Start. She concentrated on not losing her balance. When she took a quick peek at the dark seams in the ice, Patience’s warning crossed her mind. What if the ice suddenly opened up below them, if the snowmobile hit a thin spot? Now that the houses of Stormy Cove had disappeared behind the hills, her surroundings appeared much more menacing and the dangers significantly more real.

To quell her rising fear, she called on a childhood trick. When she used to swim in the Pacific, she had the irritating habit of imagining a shark coming at her through the dark water. It was all in her mind because there was really no threat of s
harks in the waters around Vancouver. As a child, she’d make herself take five more strokes before she could run to shore. Once she’d swum five strokes, she gave herself five more. This was how she could swim farther and farther out, enjoying every stroke she’d wrested from the make-believe shark.

Now, on the ice, she started to count. She had to get through sixty seconds so she could tell Noah to turn around and head back to shore as fast as possible. After sixty seconds, she gave herself sixty more. Eventually, the shore was far away and the Isle of Demons much closer. Its rugged cliffs pierced the blue sky. She could make out the outlines of a wrecked ship on the rocky shore. Noah hadn’t mentioned that. She rapped him on the shoulder, and he stopped the snowmobile.

“What’s that?” she asked breathlessly after they’d removed their helmets. She took out her camera.

“British freighter, the
Langleecrag
. Ran aground and broke up in a snowstorm—1947, I think.”

“The ship was sailing in winter—wasn’t the water frozen?”

“No, no, it was November. I think it was supposed to pick up wheat in Quebec.”

“Any fatalities?”

“Two men drowned. Crew had to hold out on the island for four days.”

“It took that long to find them?”

“They sent out an SOS, but the guys from Newfoundland couldn’t tell exactly where they were stranded. And the weather was much too bad. You should be here for a winter storm sometime—nobody wants to go outside.”

“Then what happened?”

“A whaler from St. Anthony went to look for the men. Finally found them and shot a harpoon onto the island. The men wrapped it around a rock. Then they pulled a lifeboat along the rope and the men were shuttled off.”

“How many?”

“About forty, I think.”

“They could easily have frozen to death,” said Lori, who’d gotten cold in the meantime.

Noah nodded. “Yeah, they only had a bit of sailcloth for shelter. Let’s get going, isn’t far now.”

Lori looked at her watch. The crossing had taken a whole hour. But they made landfall faster than she’d expected. They found a place to gently transition onto land, and the snowmobile was once again on soft snow. Noah didn’t stop by the shipwreck but accelerated for the steep climb to the crest of a hill. Lori clutched the grips with both hands so she wouldn’t fall backward. They’d almost reached the top when the snowmobile threaded a narrow pathway between some low fir trees.

At that moment, everything happened very fast. The skis got stuck, the motor stopped abruptly, and the snowmobile tipped over. Lori was thrown off and skidded down the slope. She felt her helmet bang on the ground several times. Then her boots hit something under the snow to break her fall. She lay on her back, but didn’t dare move so she wouldn’t slide down any farther.

She slowly raised her head.

Through her smudged visor, she could vaguely make out the snowmobile up on the slope. She felt a sudden terror. What if the snowmobile slid down after her? Lori tried to crawl to the side, but she couldn’t control her feet. With the courage born of desperation, she quickly rolled over onto her stomach, which caused her to slide some more, but she was able to use her boots to come to a stop.

Her helmet blocked her view, and she was busily wiping it off when she dropped a glove. She tried to pick it up, but now her helmet slipped out of her hand and rolled down the hill. Good—at least she could see clearly. And what she saw was that the snowmobile wouldn’t fall on her—something was holding it up. A body lay beneath it. Noah. She saw his head and helmet, an arm, a shoulder.

She heard him shout.

“I’m coming!” she yelled as loud as she could.

She dug the toes of her boots into the slope until she gained purchase, a technique she knew from skiing. What luck that she was wearing hiking boots and not her felt-lined rubber ones. But she was missing a glove.

She was breathing hard, her heart hammering. The slope seemed endless, but the higher she climbed, the more it flattened out. Finally standing beside the snowmobile, she was relieved to see that it was on the edge of a flat hilltop.

Otherwise, the situation was terrible. Noah was pinned on his back, the weight of the snowmobile pushing him down into the snow.

She carefully opened his visor.

“Are you hurt?” She tried to sound strong.

He blinked at the sun.

“I don’t know.”

“Are you in pain?”

“No, I don’t think so. There’s just a lot of weight on my legs. Can you lift it up some?”

“Lift it? How?”

“Just half an inch. Maybe I can get out.”

She knew she couldn’t. She would have had to stand on the slope, and the snowmobile easily weighed five hundred pounds. What’s more, she ran the risk of it tipping toward her, and they both would be hurtled down into the deep valley.