Chapter 1 Excerpt

...Eighteen ounces of peaches hurtled to the floor and rolled beneath the table as Sophie
spun quavering toward the back door. The determined thump was repeated, and she gulped
for air and fumbled at the doorknob. The screen door had already creaked open on its
hinges, so that Sophie found herself prematurely face to face with a blocky little woman in a
mud brown corduroy barn jacket that served only to augment the impression of dull
angularity.
"Thought you'd be here. In the kitchen," the woman nodded toward the area behind Sophie.
"Unpacking. Food," she continued resolutely, as Sophie gave no sign of comprehension.
"I'm sorry, I..." She motioned the woman in and offered her hand, pulling it back
awkwardly as she realized her visitor clutched an object in each arm. "I mean, you surprised
me. Please, come in," she added unnecessarily, as the other woman had already sidled up to
the counter, where she relieved herself of a low pot.
"Casserole," she said, turning back to Sophie and wiping a stubby hand along her pant leg
before clasping Sophie's hand and pumping it. "Bea Baskin. Oh, and there's this." She held
up a metal pyramid that swayed and clattered heavily on its chain. "Housewarming."
"That's very kind," smiled Sophie, recovering her public presence. She took the hanging
chain in one hand and the clanger in the other so as to still the thick reverberation and
placed it respectfully on the table.
"Maine buoy bell windchime. I've got one. Always found something comforting about the
sound. Tell you something about what the wind's doing too, though. Functional, as you might
say."
"It's beautiful. Thank you. And," Sophie indicated the pot, "for the casserole too.  It smells
wonderful."
"Venison. Course, Patch McKay wanted me to tell you it was possum," snorted Bea Baskin.
"But don't pay him any mind if he ribs you about it. Been here forever and then some, and
he's kinda cynical about newcomers, but he's okay really. Be the first one over here with a
plow if you get snowed in."
"Well, that's good to know," replied Sophie, flashing a self-conscious smile and shifting
uncomfortably. Bea Baskin stared at her in apparent anticipation, but of what Sophie had no
idea. "Would you like some coffee?"
"That'd be nice. But first, who are you?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"What's your name?"
"Oh," she flushed foolishly. "I'm sorry.  Sophie." She hesitated. Then, "Sophie Westenra,"
she smiled broadly. "I'll just get the coffeemaker. It's in the dining room. Please, sit down. I
won't be a minute."
She darted down the narrow hall and into the tiny dining room that shared a wall with the
kitchen, rummaging nervously through the cardboard cartons that sprawled on the polished
wood floor until she found what she wanted. She stood for a moment hugging the
coffeemaker to her absently. Well, it was done now. She'd made the only choice she could,
the choice she had known she would make when she'd opened the new bank and credit card
accounts and signed the lease on the cottage. But it hadn't seemed real or final until she'd
tossed it out there in the kitchen. She pressed her lips together hard, took a deep breath and
returned to the kitchen where her new neighbor reposed.
Or perhaps "reposed" was not the right word. Bea Baskin stared into one of the cupboards,
balancing next to her shoulder like a dumbbell the can of peaches she had retrieved from
beneath the table.
"Oh, next one over," pointed Sophie, as she plugged in the coffeemaker and slid her special
Gevalia canister off the little shelf above the stove. "Thank you. I forgot I'd dropped that,
I'm afraid." She felt the heat suffuse her face again as she realized how mindless she must
sound, as though it was a common thing for her to drop canned food on the floor and forget
about it. "What do you take in your coffee?" she asked, pouring the water through the
screen and flipping the switch.
"A little cream would be nice," said Bea Baskin, closing the cupboard door and settling into
one of the vinyl-clad chairs at the kitchen table.
Sophie pulled two cups out of another cupboard where she had already stacked the single set
of dishes she would be keeping. She would give away the others in the spring, but for now,
they would sit on the sideboard in the silent dining room far away where the grandfather
clock stood mute in the corner. It was odd to think of them there, collecting dust, unseen
and unused, where they had been set so often to grace the elegant mahogany table at so
many dinner parties. "I only have non-dairy creamer. I hope that's all right," she said,
closing the refrigerator door and holding up the carton.
"Course. That's all anybody's got here. It keeps. That and the powdered stuff."
Sophie poured the coffee, set a cup and the creamer in front of her guest and sank down into
the chair opposite her. "So..."
"Bea."
"Bea. How did you know I was here? Carl Jacobsen? I wouldn't have thought he would---"
"Carl?" She made a gurgling sound that Sophie surmised was a laugh, but which served
nonetheless to reinforce Sophie's image of her as a small brown troll. "Nah. He's mainland.
Knows everybody on the island, naturally. Even stays here sometimes. Built himself a cabin
toward the middle of the island. But he's not permanent, as you'd say, so I think he figures
island gossip is for islanders. Well, you've met him. Man of few words anyway," she gurgled
again. "No, I knew you were here because there are a hundred and sixty-three permanent
residents on the island. So when a hundred and sixty-fourth shows up, everybody knows.
Small island, small community. No secrets here," she said, gazing over the top of her cup at
Sophie, who wriggled unconsciously in her chair. "Least nothing that stays secret for long."
"That sounds ominous," Sophie observed with a forced giggle.
"Oh, I didn't mean it to sound like that. Just with so few people thrown together in so small
an area, well, folks get to know each other. And there doesn't seem much point in hiding
things. And that being the case, there's probably less to hide, if you see what I mean."
"Do you mean," Sophie asked stiffly, as she pressed her back against the chair, "that the
fear of discovery keeps people honest?"
"Well, I hadn't quite worked it out like that, but yeah, I suppose it does."
"I will bear that in mind," smiled Sophie.
"Oh, now, I didn't mean you. Nah, folks are just curious about you. Natural enough."
"I see," Sophie said truthfully, as it became suddenly clear to her. Bea Baskin had been
appointed the official gatherer of information. She inhaled deeply, her fingers drifting
absently across her lips, and leaned forward to rest her elbows on the table. "Well, let's see.
I'm a freelance writer. Magazine and newspaper articles mostly."
"That a fact? I won't deny folks always wonder what people do for a living. I mean, if they
don't have jobs on the island. A writer. That makes sense. Because naturally, if somebody
doesn't work on the island, and they don't work on the mainland, then folks wonder."
"I guess that's to be expected. They probably also wonder why a person, particularly a
middle-aged woman, would choose to move here. Besides the obvious charm of the place,"
she hastened to add.
"That too."
"I guess the general answer is that I felt I needed a change." A significant change. A change
that would distance her from the shock and the horror and the fearful accusations of those
months, and most of all, from the hurtful whispers and sidelong glances afterwards.         
"And," she said with another deep breath, "I'd always enjoyed my visits here, so I thought it
would be a good place to settle."
"Yeah, it is that, and I expect more people would do it if they could. Course then we'd be
overrun," shrugged Bea. "But then most people wouldn't be able to, because of family or
jobs.  Be harder for a married couple, say."
"I'm sure it would." It was clear enough to Sophie what Bea Baskin was after. But rather
than being annoyed with the woman's transparent attempt to coax the information out of
her, she was relieved that she'd been given the opportunity to impart the facts she wanted to
impart in such a way as to satisfy the curiosity of the community that there was no more to
learn. "Fortunately for me, that wasn't a consideration," she smiled.
Bea Baskin's mouth slid to one side and she sniffed indifferently. "You're not married then."
  "Not any more." She leaned back in the chair instinctively to signal an end to the
"interview." "More coffee?"
"No, but thanks," answered Bea Baskin, as she extricated herself from the tubular steel and
vinyl chair that had become "retro" in the city, but was here, in Dorothy Hardesty's kitchen,
just part of Dorothy Hardesty's old dinette set. "Time for me to be moseying along. I hope
you don't mind me asking"--she rested one hand on the back of the chair and cocked her
head away from Sophie, who thought the hope belated and smiled inwardly--"but it was my
understanding that Dorothy's--that'd be Dorothy Hardesty, this was her house, you
know--that her son was looking to sell the place. He change his mind, or you weren't
buying?"
In fact, Sophie had had no difficulty convincing George Hardesty, comfortably ensconced in
his suburban home across the bay and some sixty miles east, to lease her the house he had
grown up in and now wanted no part of. He had been frankly relieved to have someone
occupying the place, and even happier with the prospect of generating some income from it.   
   "No, he still wants to sell it. But since it's such a big decision for me, such a major change,
he was kind enough to allow me to lease it for awhile, to see whether it will work out before
I buy it."
"Hm! Probably just glad to have somebody in the place," Bea Baskin noted cannily. "Well,"
she stuck out her hand in gesture of farewell, "time for me to get, Sophie. Say, how did you
pronounce your last name again?"
Sophie took the extended hand and said deliberately, "West-en-ra." As she renewed her
thanks and saw Bea Baskin out the back door, she smiled. Not at Bea Baskin, but because
she had really done it. She was Sophie Westenra now. Sophie Skala had been left back on
the mainland with Peter. In the grave.