Chapter Twenty-Four
Twenty-Four
The phone is old. A battered flip model that was out of date even back when I had mine.
When I press the power button, nothing happens.
But a dead battery doesn’t mean Violet should have kept it a secret.
Brad said he and Loretta each had solar power banks.
One or both might still be in this house, capable of charging Violet’s phone.
“My, you’re a curious one.”
I turn around and see Violet standing in the doorway, a hand on her hip. Instead of being angry, she seems oddly pleased that I’ve managed to discover her little secret.
“You’re always poking around everywhere,” she says. “Like a little mouse.”
I hold out the phone. “Why do you have this?”
“It doesn’t work.”
“And that doesn’t answer my question.”
Violet takes a single, forceful step into the room. “I’ve kept that phone in my suitcase for years. In case I lose my main one and there’s an emergency. I’d forgotten all about it until a few days ago.”
“You didn’t think to tell the rest of us that? Even though we’ve been stranded here for days?”
“I told you, it doesn’t work,” Violet says, snatching the phone from my hands. “That’s why I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want anyone to think it was our way of getting away from this place. Because it’s not.”
The answer rings false. A surprise. Violet is such a great actress that normally I believe every word she says.
“I think it’s there because you can use it if you want to,” I say. “But you don’t.”
Because she wants us to be stranded here.
The idea, percolating since I first saw the book on hexology, now reaches full boil as I take in the other titles spread across the bed.
Witchcraft. Demonology. Spells. Sure, they could all be part of the meticulous research Violet is known for.
But the phone suggests something else is at play here.
“Why are you and Loretta so obsessed with what happened on this island?”
Violet waves away the notion with a swat of her hand. “Who says we’re obsessed?”
“You,” I say. “You told me that. That the two of you have been obsessed with New Avalon since you were little. That’s why you decided to make a movie about it. There has to be a reason. So, what is it?”
“Because what happened here says a lot about how women are perceived, both then and now.” Violet moves to the window, watching her candlelit reflection flicker against the glass.
“The only reason anyone talks about New Avalon is because there are no answers for what happened. People love an unsolved mystery. No one actually cares about the women themselves. I suspect, deep down, that plenty of people on the mainland were relieved to have them gone. That they believed all of those women got exactly what they deserved.”
“Why would anyone think that?”
Violet turns around, locket clenched in her fist and a disappointed look on her face.
“God, your generation. So naive. Five women—unmarried ones, at that—living on an island without a man around? Of course they’d be deemed suspicious and untrustworthy.
When, in truth, they were just women who stood out from regular society.
Intelligent women. Gifted women. I suspect it was the same with the ones who were on this island long before the Semple family bought it.
Those alleged witches. Back then, any woman was called a witch if men feared her enough.
It’s no surprise people assumed something unnatural was taking place on this island. ”
“But something was,” I say. “And still is.”
And none of us would have known that if Loretta hadn’t insisted we spend a week on New Avalon, living like they did in the past. A purposeful isolation made more acute by the sudden removal of her and Brad.
I picture him writhing on the ground, looking close to death. The image summons a memory. His showing me around the cottage, warning me about the lake water running in the taps. Don’t drink it without boiling it first. You’ll be sicker than a dog if you do.
Another memory arrives. The start of the séance. How to demonstrate we’d be using an ordinary glass, Brad gulped down the water inside.
“You gave Brad unboiled water, didn’t you?” I say with a gasp. “You or Loretta. You filled his glass with water straight from the lake because you knew it would make him so sick that Loretta would need to take him off the island.”
Violet’s eyes go wide. “You’re saying I helped my sister purposefully abandon us here? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Then why isn’t she back, Violet?” I say. “It’s been days. Even if Brad had to be taken to a hospital a thousand miles away, surely Loretta would have made some arrangements to get us off this island. That she hasn’t suggests that she—and you—want us to remain here, cut off from the mainland.”
“Why would we do that?” Violet says with showy indignation.
I look again to the books on the bed. All those arcane subjects. They strike me as preparation not for a role but for real life. A situation that has fascinated Violet since childhood—and one that she now gets to experience firsthand.
“To see if it was real,” I say, thinking about the séance that occurred after Brad had emptied his meager bag of tricks. Loretta had leaned forward then, telling us to continue. I’m curious what happens during a real one.
We now know, which I think was the goal all along. For some twisted reason, Violet purposefully tried to get history to repeat itself.
“You want to find out what really happened here, don’t you?” I say. “To get answers, you and Loretta decided to make it happen again. You’re just like everyone else. Obsessed with the unsolved nature of it all. You don’t care about the women who vanished.”
“You’re wrong,” Violet says, an edge to her voice. I’ve touched a nerve. “I care very much about what happens to women. More than most.”
“Tell that to Susie, Heather, and Julianne.”
“They might not be as lost as you think.”
I’m not sure Violet means to say it. She inhales once the words are out, like she’s trying to suck them back in and swallow them down. But it’s too late. I’ve heard them, and all she can do is turn her back to me again.
“Do you know what happened to them?” I ask.
Violet says nothing. A maddening silence that draws me closer, even when I suspect I should be running. It dawns on me, right now, that I might be in more danger than I first thought.
That the next woman to vanish on this island could be me.
“Did you do something to them, Violet? You and Loretta?”
I’m at her back now, a hand clamping down on her shoulder, demanding that she turn around and face me.
“Look me in the eyes and tell me you and your sister aren’t behind all of this.”
Violet does look me in the eyes. A direct stare that’s so disconcerting because of how many times I’ve seen it on the big screen.
It happens in so many of her movies. That big moment when Violet Wright, screen legend, locks her blue eyes with the camera, as if she’s peering into your very soul.
This is exactly like that, only it’s one on one. A movie meant just for me.
Her lips part, and for a moment, I think she’s about to admit that I’m right. I can feel the confession coming. I even brace myself for it, pressing the soles of my shoes into the floor.
But then Violet smiles. It’s a coy smile, revealing nothing.
“No comment,” she says.