For a moment the room beyond the reach of that single candle wavered, showed a ghostly otherwhere. Not the mound and the masked priests. No, rather rough walls. And she was a captive there—waiting—
Ah, but she had the answer—it lay right in her hands. Persis no longer tried to throw aside the fan. Instead she gave a turn to the narrow end. What it contained slid out smoothly, a delicate and deadly length of steel. Though she could not know it, a small, crooked smile shaped upon her lips, and there was a new depth of light in her eyes.
She held a dagger, nonetheless deadly for being so short. It would be long enough to cut a man’s throat— or even find his heart. The opal eyes of the cats flamed in the half light, promising. Persis dropped the fan-shaped sheath, put the forefinger of her other hand to the needle-tip of the hidden blade.
This was a key to unlock the door of desperation. As she held it so, once more shadows moved in her mind. Not memories of hers, rather a faded picture which might have come from a long distance, or far away in time. The girl she had seen brought to the mound in her dream—she had had no such weapon—it had not existed then.
But there had been a later captive, as helplessly entrapped here. And this had been her way to safety. Persis’ hand no longer tried to reject the touch of that blade. Why should she throw from her the one defense left.
Soon he would come; she knew it as well as if she already saw him walk through the shadowy doorway. Then she must play her little game, be one who cowered and feared—bring him close—even endure his touch until—until she could use the steel she held!
She was breathing fast, the tip of her tongue passing quickly back and forth across her lips.
Slowly she turned the blade in the candlelight. From it shimmered kind of radiance, cold and deadly. The girl watched that half-bemused—but at the same time she was listening. When would he come? Perhaps it was part of his cruelty to keep her waiting this way. But he would discover—she moved the blade lightly through the air. The point caught on one of the folds of the net around the bed, and slit it easily apart.
So small a thing, but the action jerked Persis from her bemusement. What—who—? She dropped the blade, her hands going to press against her cheeks. Her skin felt hot, fevered. Was she ill and those dreams part of delirium? She was—she took firm hold on her thought—Persis Rooke! This was a room which had no confusing shadows to cloak it. And what lay before her—
With a shudder she thrust the thin blade back into the concealment of the mock fan. Though she had been only a spectator at the grisly torch-lit scene of her too-vivid dream, this time she had been near enough awake to at least confusedly realize she was in a house. Who had been there to open the drawer where she had hidden the fan earlier, who had brought it back? And why—?
The lost lady-?
Persis made herself give searching survey to the room. A woman had vanished years ago, many years ago, leaving a dead man behind her. Where had she gone? There must have been no escape from the Key for her. If she had killed the man, who would have forced her—had she just walked into the sea?
It was the hidden fan which had so strangely reappeared which troubled her. She forced herself to pick up the blade, slip it once more into the case which had held it. That quick twist of the fingers which anchored it within—how had she known that must be done?
Throw it into the sea? But even as she picked up the fan-shaped case she knew—against all reason—that she could not do so. Now as she held it once more her fingers tightened around it protectingly—Protectingly? Yes, she had to keep this—there was a reason. It was as if a thin voice, very far away, was raised in warning.
Persis got to her feet. Her body was clammy with sweat, her night rail clung to shoulders and thighs, as she moved, with the wavering steps of someone who has been a long time ill and was trying to walk again for the first time, to the chest of drawers.
Into that she pushed the mock fan, pulled the clothing over it. Her mouth was dry; she longed for a glass of water. And when she went back toward the window her hands were shaking so that not all her power of will could still them. Once more she looked out into the night.
There was a torch below now. Against the dazzlement of that light she saw a hunched shape. And there was something wrong with the outline of the head.
That turned, so it was plain in profile against the torchlight. It—it was one of the priests! One of the animal-headed ones who had awaited the sacrifice. Persis blinked and blinked again.
No, there was no canoe. Just a single torch. And she was not on the mound of her dreams, rather in a house which used its remains for a base. The torch disappeared. But surely that had been no human face she had caught a glimpse of—
There was no sound now but a distant wash of waves, the sigh of wind outside. She was oddly free. All she had sensed—in her dream—and in her awakening to find the treacherous fan close at hand—was gone. Also—she felt suddenly sleepy as one does who is drained of all strength or who has been drugged.
She stumbled back to the bed, one small fear still stirring in her. To sleep might mean to dream again. She must not let that happen—she must not! But her weighted eyelids closed against all her determination.
If she dreamed again it was not so vividly, nor could she remember any of it, when she struggled out of that pit of unconsciousness the next morning. However, the face she looked up into was not Molly’s usual round features with their ever-slight flush, but rather Sukie’s browned features.
The island maid set down a covered cup on the small bedside table, her eyes more for that duty than for Persis who hunched forward on her pillows, coming fully awake at this surprise at the change in routine she had known for so many years.
“Where’s Molly?” she demanded almost too sharply. Sukie glanced at her sideways as if she did not quite like to be where she was. Persis had never noticed her much before, now she was a little repelled by the girl’s harsh features. She must be of mixed blood as many of the islanders were. But the jut of her nose which looked out of proportion with the rest of her face was reminiscent of Askra’s. Perhaps she did have some remote strain of the archaic blood of the people who had built the mound. The mound—Persis battled down her vivid memory of that dream.
“She’s ailin’. Stayed in bed.” Sukie sounded sullen. Perhaps she resented having to take over new duties.
“Ailing!” But Molly was never sick. In all the years the maid had seen Persis herself through the ordeals of measles, colds, and a lengthy bout of fever (which did not, thank God, turn out to be smallpox as had first been feared) Molly herself had been a tower of strength.
Persis scrambled out of bed, thrust her feet into her slippers, and grabbed the wrapper from where it lay across a chair. With her hair still in the braids Molly herself had made last night, she was already on her way to the door.
She heard Sukie say something she did not wait to catch, instead she headed for that second flight of stairs, hurrying to them with only the care of catching up the front of her wrapper so it would not trip her.
A few moments later she was in Molly’s room, just in time to support her head as the maid retched miserably into the slop pail, runnels of sweat on her cheeks from the thick beads gathering on her forehead.
The attack over, Persis eased her back on her pillows.
“Somethin’ I ate,” Molly got out between gasps of breath. Under Persis’ fingers on her wrists her pulse was laboring. “Please, Miss Persis—I—hurt—”
Her big hands pressed against her thick body just under her breasts and the eyes she turned on Persis begged for reassurance and comfort.
11
“A severe bout of indigestion,” Dr. Veering gave his verdict in a precise voice. “The eating of our raw fruit by those not accustomed to such fare has been known to produce just such symptoms. Your man has something of a like nature—”