The Purgatorium: The Purgatorium Series, Book One Page 4

Chapter Four: A Change of Heart

  Daphne woke up early and peered out the window. One of the girls she met at dinner was sunbathing by the pool, eyes closed. A few other people walked on the sidewalks going to and coming from the main building and the beach. Daphne was peeved that Cam hadn’t returned her call. She was anxious to see the look on his face when she told him about what had happened last night. She called him, but once again, there was no answer.

  She took her bag from the closet and started packing. When she had finished, she went to the window and scanned the pool and sidewalks. People walked past, and a few more were on loungers. A man swam laps in the pool.

  Seeing no sign of the ghost girls, Daphne put on her bathing suit to swim laps, too. Swimming had always calmed her. Plus, she wanted one more look at the underwater aquarium before demanding to be taken off the island.

  Swimming on top of all that beautiful marine life was magnificent. She felt as though she were in the ocean as she navigated over the coral and sea urchins and colorful anemone, easier to see clearly now with her goggles. As she made her turn to continue free-style to the other side, the moray eel poked out of the wall of the cave and snatched the silver flash of a fish. Other fish darted away, in the same direction as she, a whole school, and she was swimming with them, one with them, a part of the universe.

  She climbed out of the pool and slipped on her cover, a silky yellow one with buttons. A few people she recognized from dinner were walking toward the main building for breakfast. Daphne preferred to have toast or muffins in her own room (she would never enter that elevator again), but first she wanted to take another look at the beach.

  As she climbed the steps up the canyon wall, the wind knocked against her, adding to her overall feeling of rejuvenation. From the summit, the view was as spectacular as she had remembered it, with the yellow poppies dancing in the breeze to her left, and the chalky bluff, an impenetrable fortress, to her right. Circling above the bluff was a pair of bald eagles. Before she took her eyes away, they soared down toward the valley and were gone. Below her were the empty white beach and the gentle, foamy waves and a handful of gulls calling to her. She was about to turn and head back to her room when a figure on the chalky bluff caught her attention. Someone was standing there, looking out over the sea, and before she could make out whether it was a man or a woman, the figure flung itself over the edge and into the raging water below.

  Daphne drew in air and stood there at a loss. Was the person crazy? Did whoever it was want to die? She couldn’t decide whether she should run down to the beach and wait to see if the person made it to the shore or run for help. Several agonizing seconds passed before she decided to go for the beach, in spite of Arturo Gomez’s warning to avoid going places alone. On her way down the steep boardwalk, she saw the person resurface and climb back up the chalky bluff as though he or she were a starfish scaling along the side of a cave.

  When she reached the beach, the figure jumped once more. Daphne took off her flip-flops and jogged along the beach to the bottom of the bluff and waited for the person to resurface. Twenty feet away, a dark curly head emerged.

  “Stan!”

  He turned in mid-climb, grasping the base of the bluff. He waved, lowered himself back into the water, and swam up until he hit the shallow sand bed, where he climbed to his feet. She waded out and met him.

  “What are you doing? You could hit your head on a rock and die out here. You shouldn’t be out here alone.”

  “As it turns out, I’m not. You’re here.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Come on. Give it a try.”

  “No way. You scared me to death.” The thought of her bones crunching against the sharp rocks below sent a shiver down her neck.

  He gave her a charming smile. “I was about to head back. Have you eaten?”

  “Not yet.” She put on her flip-flops. The sand was hot. “I’m going to eat in my room.”

  “You’re the one who’s crazy. They have the best breakfast buffet here.” They climbed the steps of the boardwalk. “Looks like you went for a swim, too.”

  “Not a crazy, cliff diving swim, but yes. Laps in the glass-bottom pool.”

  “Yeah. Nothing like it in the whole world.”

  “It’s amazing. I saw a moray eel grabbing its breakfast.”

  “You sound happier today. Are you still planning on leaving?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” Seeing Stan and having a normal conversation with him made her question her decision to leave. She waited for him to comment, and when he didn’t, she asked, “Are you going kayaking this afternoon?”

  “I want to, but I need to get a couple of days’ work in. I’ve got to get this paper done before the summer ends, and I can’t write the paper if I don’t study the archaeological sites and ruins more thoroughly.”

  “Too bad.”

  “I was going to put it off, but we’re supposed to be getting bad weather tomorrow evening, so I better do it today. You should come with me sometime. They’re amazing.”

  “Do they have tours?” She recalled a family trip to Mesa Verde in western Colorado when she was seven. Kara was five and still alive and Joey had not yet started listening to the voices.

  “Not yet. Someday they will, but now it’s all still primitive on that side of the island.”

  They made their descent down the wooden steps, the wind railing against them. Daphne asked, “So did you have any visitors last night?”

  He bent his brows. “Visitors?”

  “Ghosts.”

  “You were visited by ghosts last night? What a night you had.”

  “Not real ghosts. I don’t believe in real ghosts.”

  “Thank God. For a moment you had me worried.”

  She quickly skipped down the remaining steps, and he followed behind her.

  “So what kind of ghosts were they then?” he asked.

  “People in costume, I guess. They didn’t come to your door last night?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. I didn’t hear anyone.”

  They passed the pool and reached his unit. “This is me. Want to come in while I change?”

  “No, I’m going to eat in my room.”

  “Goodbye, then.”

  She left Stan’s unit to return to her own.

  While in the shower, she decided to stay and carry out her original plan. She might not have another chance like this for a very long time.

  Have you ever considered the possibility that there might not be a heaven? The voice inside her head asked.

  Yes. In fact, I have.

  She found muffins and fruit and juice in the kitchenette and brewed a mug of coffee and was finishing up when Cam rang at the door. She opened it.

  “I missed you last night,” she said, keeping her distance, unsure whether she wanted him to know how hurt and angry she was.

  “I had a late night with Dr. Gray. Sorry.”

  She stepped away from the door to let him in. “So you didn’t get my message?”

  “No. You left a message?”

  “Last night. I was thinking of leaving today, but I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Leaving? Are you serious? Why? Don’t tell me the game with the ghosts scared you. It was supposed to be a fun kind of scary, you know?”

  She moved to a striped chair and crossed her feet on the coffee table. “The elevator.”

  “The elevator?”

  She studied his face but found only confusion as she told him what had happened.

  “I underestimated Stan,” he said. “What a jerk.”

  “What? Jerk? No, Stan helped me. I was scared to death.”

  “Sure he helped you. He stopped the elevator himself to frighten you into his arms.”

  “Impossible. I would have noticed. Plus, the lights went out.” She could feel the heat on her face. Did Cam really think Stan liked her in that way?

  “They probably shut off when you shut down the elevator.”

  “It wa
sn’t Stan. I thought it was you and Hortense Gray.”

  Cam’s jaw dropped. “What? How? We were still at dinner. How could we have done it? And why?”

  “It wasn’t one of your exercises?”

  He crossed his arms. “The exercise was the ghosts. I thought you would like it. The same thing was done to me on my first night, and I loved it.”

  “By then I was too upset from the elevator.”

  “You’ve got to believe me, Daph. I had nothing to do with the elevator. Maybe Stan didn’t either. Maybe it just got stuck.”

  “Has that ever happened before?”

  “I don’t know. Not to me.” He plopped in the other chair beside her.

  “Why doesn’t Stan know about the therapeutic games?” she asked.

  “They have regular guests here, too. Mostly students and scientists and archaeologists.”

  “I called you at ten last night.”

  “Dr. Gray put me through an exercise that ran late. It was bizarre. I’m not supposed to talk about it. She’ll probably give the same one to you. It was awesome.”

  “Cam,” she punched his arm. “Tell me.”

  He pursed his lips and made a motion with his fingers of locking his mouth shut.

  She rolled her eyes and asked, “Are you still going kayaking?”

  “Of course. The caves are amazing.”

  The phone rang. Dr. Gray was on the line, asking her to come to the lobby to meet with the naval guards. They needed to take down her statement about the girl and the man in the valley.

  Apprehensive, she recalled the last time she had to give a statement. She had been the only witness other than Joey. She had wanted to lie then. Maybe she should have lied.

  She met with the guards in the lobby where they sat in overstuffed chairs, and she told them what she saw. Hortense, Cam, and Roger were with her, corroborating her statement. The younger of the two took notes and the older, shorter one asked the questions. When she said all she knew, she asked the officers if they thought the murderer was still at large on the island.

  “Doubtful,” the older one said. “Unlike serial killers, who leave clues and hang around to watch the investigation, this guy appears to be an opportunist who took advantage of a situation. He probably got off the island as soon as he could.”

  “But you don’t know this for sure?” Daphne asked.

  “No. We’re searching every square inch, but you’ve got to understand we have little to go on, and killers look like everyone else.”

  Cam put his hand over hers when the officers left. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”

  Daphne had the same intuitive feeling she had felt at dinner—that everyone around her was acting. She continued to suspect that there was no murderer and the naval guards were actors, too.

  Hortense thanked Roger for coming, dismissing him, and turned to Daphne. “I have a short and easy exercise for you, which I can conduct here at this coffee table.” She gave Daphne a stack of index cards. “I’d like you to read the information on each of the cards and then sort them into categories.”

  “How many categories?”

  “That’s entirely up to you. Take as much time as you need.”

  She looked across the table at Cam, who gave her an encouraging nod. On each card was written the name of a color, but the ink in which it was written did not match the name in color. Daphne needed to decide whether to sort the cards by the names of the colors or by the colors of ink. Should she put the index cards with the word “red” in one pile, or the index cards in which red ink was used in one pile? Daphne went with the former.

  When she finished, Hortense gave her another stack of index cards. “Once more, please.”

  Daphne wondered how these exercises could be considered “therapeutic.” Maybe the doctor was gathering information about Daphne so she could design better games for her.

  This time each card had a description of a death. The first read, “A boy is accidentally run down by a drunken driver.” Another read, “A bank robber kills an uncooperative bank employee during a robbery.” Daphne put the deaths into categories: unavoidable accidental deaths (“A man is killed by lightning”), avoidable accidental deaths (“An unsupervised child drowns in a swimming pool”), intentional deaths without premeditation (“A store clerk is killed when he tries to disarm a robber”), and intentional deaths with premeditation (“An adulterous woman is killed by her husband”).

  Daphne was moving right along, systematically placing the index cards, rather pleased with her speed, though she did not know if speed was a concern of the experiment (she had been told to take her time), when she came upon this on the very last card: “A mentally ill boy strangles his sister to death.” Daphne looked from the card to Dr. Gray. Who was this woman?

  She narrowed her eyes at Cam, who couldn’t see the writing on the card.

  “Are you okay, Daphne?” the doctor asked. “Is something wrong?”

  With trembling hands, Daphne placed the card in the “avoidable accidental deaths” pile. “Fine. Finished. Are we done?”

  “Yes. Thank you. I’ll see you at dinner tonight.”

  Daphne and Cam got up and left the main building, Daphne unable to hide her shaking hands. She squinted in the bright sun.

  “You okay?” Cam asked. “You seem upset.”

  She stopped and turned to face him. “What did you tell her? I thought you were my friend.”

  He reached out to her, but she pulled away and continued walking in front of him. She’d go back to her room and finish packing her bags. She had to get away from this place.

  “Daph, wait.”

  She kept walking. “I want to go home.”

  “Hold on.” He caught up to her and took her arm. “Please. Listen to me.”

  She stopped and glared at him. “Well?”

  “I’ll take you home in the morning, if you still want to go. There’s no boat ‘til then.”

  “Oh, Geez! I saw hundreds at Scorpion Anchorage.”

  “The boats connected with the resort dock only at Prisoners Harbor.”

  “Just great.”

  He took her hand. “For now, try and relax. Let’s go get a massage. That should help.”

  “What did you tell her?” Daphne demanded.

  “I told her what happened to Kara.”

  “Why?” she asked, tears welling in her eyes. She could barely see.

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I had no idea it would come up.”

  Daphne turned toward her cabana. Maybe she would move her plans up to tonight.

  “So no massage?”

  “No. I’m going back to my room.”

  “Daph, I’m sorry.”

  She closed the door in his face and plopped on the bed in a heap of tears. She hadn’t allowed herself to really cry out loud like this in a long time. The tightness in her throat and the burning in her chest felt good.

  “You mean you heard and did nothing?” her mother had said.

  Daphne screamed and thrashed against the bed covers.

  The doctors said schizophrenia can be brought on by a traumatic event. Joey got it from accidentally killing Grandpa Janus. Maybe Daphne would get it, too.

  Grandpa should have left a note warning them he had turned off the electricity at the feed and convenience store he owned and operated. He was in the attic repairing the air conditioner when Daphne’s mom dropped off Joey to work that summer where their dad once worked when he was a boy. Joey, fourteen, his first job, called out for Grandpa. Joey thought he was in the back freezer or the storeroom, or further out at the silo or even the shed. When the lights wouldn’t turn on, Joey tried another switch; nothing. The refrigerators weren’t on. Nothing was on. He found the power breakers and pulled the switches. One by one, he brought everything back to life. The refrigerators buzzed, the florescent lights shined, the Icee maker turned the ice. Joey could not have known the funny smell coming from the attic was burning human flesh.

  La
ter, Cam called and begged her to go on the kayak excursion with him. She was exhausted, but she decided to bite the bullet and go. Although she was angry that he’d told Hortense Gray about Kara, there was nothing he could do to deserve what she was going to do to him tonight.

  A group gathered in a clearing where four jeeps were parked in the glaring sun. Daphne and Cam climbed in the hot, cracked vinyl seat behind Roger and an older man, early thirties, they didn’t know. They exchanged greetings. His name was Phillip from northern California.

  Roger drove them back to Prisoners Harbor, and they met their cave guide at the kayak rental. Daphne had expected the guide to be more like a blond California surfer, but instead, he was a heavy Native American with long black hair pulled into a ponytail. His bathing trousers were too large and sagged like the baggy jeans of an urban kid, revealing the top of his crack. The t-shirt had holes and stains, and was too short, allowing the hairy and protruding belly full exposure.

  “I’m Larry,” he said, shaking their hands.

  Hairy Larry, Daphne thought. Then she recognized him from Hortense’s dinner table.

  Two other guys showed up in another jeep—Vince and Dave. They had sat with Daphne with the younger crowd at dinner. They were college-age boys. Vince was thin, blond, and pale—same color as Cam. He didn’t talk much, and when he did, Daphne could barely hear what he was saying. Dave was the opposite. He was short, Hispanic, with a thick head of curly hair, and a loud, rambunctious voice. He laughed a lot, and half the time, Daphne didn’t understand his jokes.

  Larry helped them each choose the right kayak and life vest according to height and weight. He also gave them each a water bottle and a whistle. As they carried their kayaks to the harbor, Larry told them a few basic instructions: stay with the group; stay close to the shoreline; paddle at a diagonal to, rather than against, the waves; blow the whistle if you get separated from the group; don’t throw your waste in the water; don’t feed the wildlife; don’t touch the ancient art and petroglyphs on the cave walls; remain in the kayak at all times.

  “It’s not dangerous, right?” Daphne asked, feeling nervous now that they were about to begin.

  “Sure it is,” Larry said with a smile. “That’s what makes it fun.”