Fire Works in the Hamptons : A Willow Tate Novel (9781101547649) (35 page)

Ellen wanted to know why we weren't using the outdoor grill, or the oven to melt the marshmallows and chocolate.

“Good idea,” I said. “I should have thought of that. So what happened out there?”

Ellen never went ashore that night. She'd stayed with the boat, already disapproving of Martin's plan to get into the prohibited area. She only came onboard because of the kids. She tried to get them to stay away from the shore, too, but they wouldn't listen.

She swore she never saw any drugs or booze. “They must have had it in the cooler they took with them in the dinghy and the life raft. I thought it was filled with specimen bottles for the lightning bugs.”

Martin told her to turn the boat's lights off as soon as they were away, and she was so afraid of being caught that she did it. Then the youngsters came back, with police and other men who commandeered the boat and took it back to the harbor.

They took her to the police station along with the kids and almost arrested her, too. “How could I explain that to my school's director?”

Luckily, someone believed Ellen when she swore she had nothing to do with Martin and Barry's crimes. I figure the someone must have been the chief or Kelvin from the garage or one of the other truth-detectors in town. So they let her go, but state troopers were searching Martin's house and wouldn't let her in, not even to retrieve her car keys.

“They most likely wanted to search your car, too, for illegal substances,” Susan guessed, sending Ellen into another panic.

“What if they plant something there? I've heard how cops do that, to make a case look better.”

“This one looks fine without you.” I tried to reassure her. “We'll straighten it out in the morning. Don't worry.”

By now the first batch of s'mores was done, stuck to the tinfoil, melted into one sticky mass. So we got out knives and forks. Susan poured a little more Kahlua into the blender with the coffee and ice cream and crushed ice.

An hour later, Ellen was still weepy, still afraid for her job, and still apologizing. “I'm so sorry, Willow, for trusting him. He seemed so intelligent and interesting. I never meant to hurt anyone, I just wanted to know what the insects were and you wouldn't tell me.”

So that was my fault, too?

I said I forgave her and told her to go on to bed. I needed to walk the dogs. She didn't offer to come, and I was glad.

I forgave her in a way, but I no longer trusted her. She was upset by Martin's involving the children—not by his plan to study, subjugate, and slaughter the fireflies. I felt I hardly knew this person I'd roomed with for three years. Our lives had taken such different paths; I didn't see how we could be more than Christmas card friends.

The dogs forgave me for ignoring them. They didn't lie or cheat or take up with sleazy strangers—unless the strangers had hot dogs. I felt my heartbeat finally return to normal and a sense of calm spread through my body and mind. Then I realized what I sensed was the fireflies in my backyard.

Only ten appeared this time, staying up in the trees, away from the dogs.

Where are the rest of you?
I asked, picturing the swarm of them from before.

Soon,
I got back, with the same picture.

A rainbow of peace washed over me. Everything would be all right. Soon.

CHAPTER 34

P
AUMANOK HARBOR RELAXED. You could almost hear the huge sigh of relief like a Macy's parade balloon deflating. Sure Roy Ruskin was still at large, but there'd been no more fires, few lightning bug sightings, and the kids were all right.

Best of all, they'd gotten rid of the reporter. Now people could gather at the deli or the post office or the barbershop and discuss events without fear of being overheard. They used circumspection, of course, around nonsensitives, but that was a habit, not a fear-driven silence.

They'd come up with a good story to explain why the salt flats were cordoned off with high fences, a police guard at the land side, a marine patrol boat in the bay: A number of large wayward sea lion females had beached themselves to give birth, lumbering inland. Both mothers and infants died. Localized noxious gases and godawful smells resulted, along with a glow from the microscopic deep-water parasites that had driven the group to shore, then killed them. The officials were waiting for the full moon high tide at the end of next week to flood the channel and flush the unfortunate creatures out to sea where nature's recycling center could take care of the disposal problem.

Quite a few of the Harbor residents had a strange virus after telling the story. Some had rashes, some had stomach problems or eye twitches or runny noses. They'd breathed the bad air near the mama seals, they said, discouraging the curious. In truth, the lies made them sick, but everyone considered it worth the effort. With a little help from the Department of Unexplained Events, who sent a scary enforcer, people left us alone.

The tourists went home—as usual after the summer season—and many of the stores and restaurants closed except for weekends, Main Street had empty parking spaces, the beaches didn't smell of suntan lotion or sound like a rock band studio. The glitch was having to find a new science teacher after the start of the school year. On the other hand, the village now had a bunch of high schoolers owing a lot of hours of community service. Free labor never went unwelcome.

Best of all, the year-rounders had a party to plan and look forward to. Helping one of their own was as important to these people as keeping their secrets.

Ellen left.

Piet wanted to. Forest fires burned in the west, brush fires in the north, oil wells in the south. He was needed other places.

“You can't go till after the party. You're the guest of honor.”

“I thought Edie's mother was.”

“Yes, but she can't come. Too much danger of infection. Everyone knows what you did, taking care of Elladaire and curing her, so they're planning the meal for you.”

He shifted from foot to foot in embarrassment. Piet didn't blow his own horn; he didn't want to hear it tooted at a small town gathering, either. “I'll eat anything.”

“It's not about the food. It's about how they're cooking it in advance, then keeping it warm at the firehouse on electric hot plates they're borrowing from caterers in Amagansett. No candles, no open grills. No using the gas stoves or ovens.”

Susan, who appeared to have moved back in with me, uninvited as usual, added her two cents: “We're going with clam chowder, cold fried chicken, raw clams on the half shell, cold crab cakes, lots of salads and ice cream and brownie sundaes for dessert. The only thing needing cooking there is the corn on the cob. We'll manage with electric heating coils. No problemo. There'll be a cash bar, lots of door prizes, a fifty-fifty raffle, and dancing later. It'll be great. Save me a dance.”

No one said no to Susan.

Piet agreed to stay, but he couldn't just sit around waiting. He joined in the search for Roy and went on every fire call between Montauk and Southampton. The other fire departments were thrilled to help test out his new chemical extinguisher. They all wanted to order cases of the stuff as soon as it hit the market, it worked so well. In between, he put out a lot of those deck chimineas, a couple of romantically lit fireplace settings, every charcoal briquette in his drive-by vicinity. He did more to help people quit smoking than all the government ad campaigns combined. Susan's presence kept us from acting on impulse, which, I suspected, was her intention.

I wanted to leave the Harbor, too. I had deadlines, friends in the city, dry cleaning waiting to be picked up, a jade plant, and a notice from my dentist that I was due for a cleaning. Okay, nothing was crucial, but the east side apartment was home. Paumanok Harbor was a summer place, and summer was over. Mostly, I was getting too little work done on my new book, too much time spent thinking about sex and men and sexy men. And bugs, of course.

I decided to get back to the fire wizard story and leave the one about the sea god for my next project. Maybe by then I'd figure out if the mythic tale I'd made up to explain M'ma was true or merely my imagination. I'd ask M'ma if he knew which, when he woke up.

Which was another reason I had to stay. No one was throwing me a party, or even happy to see me remain in town, but I had to be here. I couldn't leave M'ma and the Lucifers. Everyone else felt like Piet: they cared more about getting rid of the otherworld creatures than they cared about their welfare. I heard whispers about explosives, napalm, and bulldozers.

No way, I shouted back to anyone who'd listen. These were sentient, sensitive beings, I told every psychic I knew. They were intelligent and loving and beautiful. Killing them could bring down the wrath of far more dangerous beings. And they'd be gone soon, I swore, and hoped it was so. The nights were getting cooler, the police force was stretched too thin, hurricanes spawned in the tropics, and outsiders were bound to question the story about the seals.

The local espers accepted my arguments, then they appointed me the expert on the unmentionable in the wetlands.

Should they dig out the channel? Should they erect an awning to keep the sun off? What about food and water? How soon would the blasted bugs be gone?

I went to ask.

A committee came with me when I visited M'ma. They said it was too dangerous for me on my own. I believed they wanted to see him for themselves.

They'd be disappointed, if past experience meant anything. So far no one but me and Piet, slightly, had seen the glorious colors of the lightning bugs or felt their mantle of peace and goodwill. Matt described M'ma as a lump of grayish decaying flesh, but he didn't have any special powers. Piet, though, who was pure magic himself, saw the same thing. Nobody on the visiting committee was a Visualizer. Only I was, which did not make me feel special, only more responsible.

We walked a recently cleared path from the nearest parking spot to a gate in the hastily erected fence that kept M'ma's region private. Charlie, the Town Hall attorney, manned the gate along with Vinnie the barber. Only people on their lists could enter the proscribed area, which aggravated me. If I was in charge, why hadn't anyone consulted me about who could bother M'ma? He wasn't a damned sideshow freak, or a science experiment like Martin believed.

I demanded to see the lists and wanted to know who wrote them without asking me, but Vinnie waved a hand in a circle around his head, and then I remembered: he could detect auras of paranormals. No ordinary citizen could get past him. Charlie pointed to his heart, and I recalled that he could sense evil intentions. I wish airport security had a thousand Charlies, instead of a thousand rules and regulations. M'ma was safe under their watch.

Everyone with me passed their tests.

I had Lou from DUE (the ominous old guy who had a sometime thing going with my grandmother. Talk about unmentionable!)

Two water wizards.

Three telepaths.

Four healers.

Five truth-seers.

And a partridge in a pear tree.

Well, maybe the partridge was an exaggeration, but someone brought kelp and baitfish in case M'ma was hungry, and someone else carried in an olive branch, a Russian olive that grew wild around here, in case M'ma recognized the symbol.

He didn't talk, not to me, not to the telepaths. Then again, I didn't hear anything from them, either. Maybe they chatted among themselves, but I had no way of knowing.

The healers had no idea how he had survived this long, how he could improve, or what could hurry the process.

The water dowsers didn't think they could make the ditch flow again, and the human lie detectors now believed what I'd said. Lou just shook his head.

“That's no whale or dolphin.”

“No seal either.”

“No fish.”

“No insect.”

“No nothing anyone's ever seen.”

The truth people agreed.

I watched their expressions and saw repulsion, curiosity, fear, and pity. None of the serenity and peacefulness M'ma and the beetles usually exuded. They saw a huge expanse of bloated, dead flesh and misshapen appendages, with eyes, ears, and mouth, if such existed, buried beneath the mud. I saw M'ma's brilliance shining through more cleared patches. In my head I saw what he could be.

They saw a problem.

I saw a miracle.

We all had so many questions, so few answers. Even the beetles seemed to have gone into hiding rather than communicate with the specialists or me. I wanted them to show their nonthreatening nature, if not one of their artistic flight patterns, but none replied to my mental callings. I wondered if they expired when the new batch hatched, their job of propagating the next generation completed. We had no way of knowing, because no one was talking, out loud or across minds.