Legacy (23 page)

I snatched it, holding down the sensation that immediately coursed though me.

No image
, I told myself.
No pain.
He looked surprised. I wanted to tell him he could touch me, to demand it, beg for it.

But instead, I let go of his hand. “However you want me, I’ll take it,” I said.

His eyes filled. He turned away and left by another exit.

I walked by myself to the beach, following a crowd of kids singing bawdy words to the tune of the alma mater. As we wound around the Meadow and through the woods behind it, I recognized the place where I’d met Peter at Beltane. It was different during the day. Cheerful, sunlit, near a well-worn path and a little stream that broadened as we approached the grassy plain above the bay shore, pungent with the scent of the sea.

Straight ahead, a half mile or so out in Whitfield Bay, stood the silhouette of Shaw Island. The quiet, almost desolate isolation of the bay felt like a beautiful gift. The rhythmic lapping of the waves, the breeze, still chilly though it was late May, the stark beauty of the island in the distance with its disused lighthouse, tumbled into rubble after more than three and a half centuries. And through it all, walking along the rocky shore, listening to the low, sad music of the sea, I again felt the pull of something, someone . . .

“Katy.” His voice was soft behind me, almost a whisper.

I closed my eyes, trembling, as I felt Peter’s strong hands on my shoulders, holding me, wanting me, sending sparks of passion over my skin.

“Phew, whose bright idea was it to come at low tide?” someone shrilled. It was Becca Fowler, with two boys I knew slightly, coming around an outcropping of tall boulders. “What a stink.”

Peter’s hands slid off me.

“I just thought we were back in your dorm,” one of the boys with Becca said.

“Pervert. Where is everyone?” She looked around. “God, Pete, tell me you and the Virgin Queen here aren’t the whole party.”

“Hey, Shaw, that’s your island out there, isn’t it?” asked the boy who’d spoken before. His name was Tim Creasy. His father was an advisor to the President, so I assumed he was cowen, but you never know. He was looking through a pair of binoculars that hung around his neck.

“Not anymore,” Peter said.

“Peter was
disinherited
,” Becca screeched. She leaned in close to me so that no one else would hear her in the wind. “I guess you scholarship kids like to stick together.”

“Bad luck, dude,” Tim said, oblivious to Becca’s sotto voce jibes.

“I suppose it belongs to old Jeremiah now, like everything else,” she said.

“A lot of good it does him,” the other boy said. I think his name was Porter or Porker or something. He was a beefy, mean-looking kid who’d started at Ainsworth this year, the same as
me. “Nobody’s even allowed on that island. I heard there was a permanent Coast Guard warning. Anyone who goes out there gets hit with a five thousand dollar fine.”

Tim gave Becca what seemed to me like a knowing look.

“Oh, we go out there all the time,” she said.

“Really?” I could tell Porker was impressed. He gestured toward two rickety rowboats that had been abandoned on the sand. “In these?”

“Hell, no,” Tim said, laughing. “You wouldn’t get fifty feet in either one. Why do you think they’ve been left here?”

“How do you get across the water, then?”

Becca leaned over, as if she were letting the new kid in on a secret. “Why should we tell you?”

Porker spat on the sand. “Why not? What’s the big deal? You party out there or something?”

Tim grinned knowingly.

“Okay, I’m cool with that.” Porker was practically vibrating with excitement. “So when do we go?”

“Low tide.”

“It’s low tide now.”

“No way, dude,” Tim said. “In a couple of hours this basin will drain completely. We’ll be able to walk over then.”

“No shit!”

“Oh, I just remembered,” Becca said. “I won’t be able to go tonight. Maybe Katy would like to, though.” She looked at me in a friendly, inquiring way.

“I . . . don’t . . .” The last thing I wanted to do was to spend the evening with someone named Porker.

“Oh, go ahead,” Becca said. “You can round up some of your friends. You too, Pork.”

“Very funny,” Peter said, crossing his arms over his chest. He turned toward the new kid. “You don’t want to go out there. For one thing, you’ll get stuck in the mud.”

Becca laughed uproariously. “Porker in the mud, get it?” The kid looked at her with an expression that started out as bewilderment but turned quickly into hatred. “Don’t worry. Peter would never have let his little pastry chef go to the island.”

“Although you were hoping I would, weren’t you?” Peter said, visibly angry. “I think Katy and I are going to walk down the beach. See you later.” He grabbed my arm by the elbow, shooting emotional arrows in all directions.

Becca shrugged. “Whatever.”

Peter didn’t say anything for a long time, and I practically had to run to keep up with his long strides.

“So was that a trick?” I asked after we’d gone a couple hundred feet.

“Yeah.”

I shrugged. “That’s okay. No harm done.”

“No, but what if I hadn’t been with you?” His gray eyes exactly matched the color of the Atlantic.

I couldn’t keep from laughing. “Do you really think I’d go slogging through the mud for a mile just to party with that guy and his friends?”

As he thought about it, Peter’s face softened. “I guess that would be pretty unlikely.”

“Unless I really needed a drink.”

We both laughed. I was just glad to be away from Becca. And I was proud of Peter for looking after me. I slipped my arm around his waist. Then he wrapped his around my shoulders, and we walked together like that for a long time.

“Was he serious?” I asked out of nowhere. “About the Coast Guard warning?”

“There is something like that.”

I shook my head. “The Shaws must be powerful people, to get the Coast Guard to protect their privacy.”

“Actually, local lore does more to keep people away than the Coast Guard,” Peter said. “Haven’t you heard about the curse of Shaw Island?”

I punched his arm. “Right. I suppose the ghosts of all those nasty old men walk its shores by night, counting their money.”

“Could be. Back in the forties, a couple of frat boys shot themselves on the island. Ever since, people have been saying that the place makes visitors want to kill themselves.” He shrugged. “They claim it’s part of Ola’ea’s curse.”

“Ola’ea?” I repeated, startled. “How do you know that name?”

“That’s Hattie’s ancestor she’s always talking about. It seems Ola’ea got royally pissed off at my great-great-whatever, Henry Shaw, when he gave the witch-hunters the okay to turn his wife into Kentucky Fried Sorceress.”

“Husband of the year.”

“Hey, I come from truly evil stock, Katy.”

“And proud of it, I see.”

“Damn right. Up until then the island was the main port of call for all the cargo ships from England. The Shaw family fortune was made collecting tolls from all those ships. My uncle’s cabin was originally the customs clearinghouse.”

“So someone does go out there?”

“Not very often. I went out once or twice with my dad, before I came to live with Hattie. Our family isn’t exactly the
cookout type, though.” He shook his head. “Back in the day when the big ships came to Whitfield, all the cargo had to be rowed ashore. This tidal basin was too shallow for those big clipper ships, even at high tide. And then the rowboats—also owned by Henry Shaw—would have to be paid for separately, while the rowers . . .”

“Employees of Shaw Enterprises, no doubt.”

“But of course. The rowers would bring the goods to shore, where there would be a caravan of wagons, also owned by Henry Shaw, which would be loaded by more Shaw employees and taken to a distribution center in Whitfield . . .”

“. . . owned by Henry Shaw,” we both said together.

“From there, earmarked items would be transported to other settlements.”

“For a small fee to Shaw, of course.”

“Of course. The Shaws weren’t running any charities, you know.”

I shook my head. “No wonder your people are so rich,” I said.

“They’re not my people,” he said, suddenly serious. “Just my name.”

“I know.”

We found a long, low boulder jutting out of the sand and sat down on it. For a long time we just looked out over the water, not speaking. It was just nice to be there, listening to the ocean together.

“Anyway, Old Henry didn’t suffer much from the curse,” Peter said. “By then he’d gone into all kinds of other businesses, banking, mostly. But in the end, it did kill him.”

“The curse?”

He nodded. “That’s what it does.”

“It kills you?”

“I told you. You kill yourself.”

I leaned back on the rock. “I think you’re full of it.”

The wind came up, and we fell silent again. This time it was uncomfortable. I could feel him next to me. He was so close. So very, very close . . .

“I’d better be going,” Peter said, standing up. “Hattie will be needing me at home.”

“Are you sure I can’t help?”

“I’m sure.”

I nodded. I wasn’t going to beg him anymore. It was done, then. I stood up too. “Good-bye, Peter,” I said. I walked away without waiting for an answer, back up the shore toward the grass, away from the direction he was headed.

So this is how it ends.

The wind gusted, wild and frightening, blowing my hair around my face. I turned back and saw Peter standing on the shore, watching me. Just watching. I was filled with so much love for him, so much desire and longing and need that I didn’t care about what was best for either of us.

I ran down the dunes and into his arms. “Don’t go,” he whispered covering me with kisses. “Don’t leave me.”

“I’ll never leave you,” I promised. “Never.”

We held on to each other as if we were prepared to be blown off the earth like Hattie’s little boy, taken up by the wind to live forever in the high places. It blew around us furiously, slapping our clothes, pulling at my hair.

Come with me
, it sang,
come to the island where living is forbidden, and be part of the air and the sea and the earth and its destruction by fire.

How can you explain . . .

His lips were on me, so soft, so urgent, willing me closer, sucking softly on my own swollen mouth. I felt him pull me toward him, felt his body straining to touch mine.

. . . when bad is somehow good . . .

His hands were on my face, holding me with a need that was almost pain. I knew, because I felt it too. I opened my mouth, and his tongue touched mine. It felt as if an electric current were passing through me. With a gasp, I opened my lips wider, wanting still more of him, feeling every inch of my skin widening, tingling, offering myself to him.

When bad is somehow . . .

Together we sank to our knees in the sand, kissing each other wildly, hungrily. I unbuttoned his shirt revealing the smooth skin of his chest while he closed his eyes. I closed mine, too, sliding into the sand with his body on top of mine, our mouths red and tender. Then gently, slowly, with the cold rawness of the wind engulfing us, he began to unbutton my blouse.

“Katy,” he whispered.

Involuntarily I moaned and arched my back, offering myself, my comfort, to him. I wanted to hold him like this forever, to make whatever was wrong with him right, to heal him with my heart and my body. His kisses were moving from my lips down my neck, and I wanted to stay with him here, in this feeling, this sweet love.

. . . the best thing that ever happened.

“Peter . . .”

“I need to stop now, Katy.” His breath came hot and fast.

“No. Don’t.”

“Yes. Before—”

“Katherine?” The voice was sickeningly familiar. “Is that you?”

“Oh, my God,” I said.

“What the HELL are you doing?” my father yelled.

Peter staggered to his feet, pulling me up with him. I began to choke, and then cough spasmodically, frantically grabbing at my clothes, trying to cover myself as I faced Dad standing three feet away from me, with Madam Mim at his side.

“I asked you—”

“Oh, what do you
think
they’re doing?” Mim said scornfully. “Grow up.”

Dad threw his arms up in the air and let out a roar like a crazed lion. Even Mim took a step backward.

I’d never seen him so furious. His face was covered with red splotches, and the veins in his forehead stood out like rivers.

“Dad . . .”

“For God’s sake, get
dressed
!” he rasped, balling his hands into fists. I was certain that he was about to kill me.

Mim covered her mouth with her hand, but her eyes were laughing. For the first time ever, I wished that it could have been Mim with me now instead of Dad. She looked Peter up and down, and seemed to like the down position better.

Meanwhile, I was scrambling to straighten out my clothes, turning around for privacy. “Dad, would you please . . .” I was trying not to cry.

He exhaled noisily and turned away as I fumbled with my buttons. My bra had gone askew too. I couldn’t seem to get anything back on right. Finally Mim came over to me and helped adjust my straps and things. Then, to my surprise,
she took my hands, which were ice cold and shaking like castanets, between her own for a moment.

“All right,” I said when I was finally done. My voice sounded as if I were talking underwater.

The four of us just stood there staring at one another for what seemed like a very long time. Finally my father broke the silence. “Who are you?” he demanded, staring holes into Peter.

“Peter Shaw . . . sir.”

“Get out of here, Peter.”

“Sir, I want to—”

“I know goddamned well what you want, Peter,” Dad said tightly. I closed my eyes, praying for death. “And I want you to go home. NOW.”

Peter swallowed. Across a chasm that felt a thousand miles wide, we stared at one another.

“Get moving,” Dad said. “Don’t make me tell you again.”