Children of the Storm

far end where her room lay at the southeast corner of the great house.
        The chamber was painted a restful shade of beige, with an inlaid teak ceiling. Dark blue carpet, the color of clean seawater, gave deliciously beneath her feet. The furniture was all hand-carved red cedar, as Henry explained. It was in a Polynesian mode, with god faces hewn into most of the open surfaces and with holy symbols-fish, suns, moons, stars, leaves-cut in between the faces. It was all heavy and rich, not in the least bit feminine but Sonya liked it. She had never really been one for frills, laces and satins, but preferred things that were different, unique. And this was certainly as different as she could have asked for. A full bath, in dark blues and greens, lay off her main room and included shower and sunken tub. Her closet was nearly as large as a whole bedroom itself.
        “May I help you unpack?” Henry asked, after bringing the last of her bags.
        “No thanks,” she said. “I'll feel more at home if I set things up myself.”
        “Dinner at eight o'clock, then,” Henry said. “You'll find the family in the front dining room.”
        “Fine,” she said. “Thank you, Henry.”
        He nodded, and he left without making a sound, closing the heavy wooden door as softly as a professional burglar stealing away from the scene of his crime.
        Sonya went first to the single window in her room, a large, many-paned sheet of glass that gave view of the back lawn, the flagstone path, most of the pavilion at the foot of the hill and, beyond that, the white beach and the endless blue-green sea. It was a beautiful view, and she knew she would make it her first stop every morning when she got out of bed, a quick glance at those marvelous skies, at the palms and sand and the breakers rolling relentlessly in toward shore. It was all so clean, so alive, so free of death. Or it seemed to be.
        She remembered the man who had threatened to kill the Dougherty children, and she wondered…
        Next, she went to her dresser and examined her reflection in the oversized oval mirror. Her long, yellow hair had already been bleached a shade or two lighter by the tropic sun, and it would be nearly pure white in a few weeks. Her face was pale, but that could be changed in a few days. For the most part she looked fine, except for the weariness of all her recent travels, which showed in an undefinable film, a thin mask of exhaustion.
        Abruptly, she realized that she had been looking at herself only to discover what kind of a picture she had presented to Bill Peterson, and she blushed anew, though there was no one to see her this time. She felt like a silly young girl struck by a juvenile infatuation, rather than like a mature young woman, and she looked away from her reflection, afraid that she would accidentally catch her own eyes, meet her own gaze and end up laughing at herself.
        Instead, she studied the frame of the large mirror, which was also of red cedar, carved to form two long slim alligators. Their scaly tails touched at the base of the mirror, hiding the sturdy braces that attached the piece to the top of the dresser, while their wide and toothy mouths met snout-to-snout at the top of the mirror. It was a beautiful piece, of excellent craftsmanship-but it was also somewhat sinister.
        She turned away from the mirror altogether and opened her first suitcase, pulled out the carefully folded clothes and began to fill up the hangers in the enormous walk-in closet. She was nearly half finished with her unpacking when the knock came at her door, loud and rapid and insistent. She finished slipping a dress onto another hanger and put that away in the closet before she went to see who knocked.
        When she opened the door, she stepped back slightly, sucking in her breath, wondering whether she ought to slam the door shut again. The man on the other side was positively menacing: better than six feet tall, so broad at the shoulders that- had he been wearing a jacket instead of a lightweight white shirt-she might have thought he was wearing padding. His chest was huge, stomach flat, arms like those of a serious-minded weight-lifter-all corded with muscle, thick and sinewy. His face was broad, his features crude enough to be the preliminary work of a sculptor hacking at a new piece of granite. His eyes were intensely blue and watchful, his nose twisted and gristly from having once been