The Purgatorium (4 page)

Daphne froze. Hadn’t she locked the door?

The girl was covered in white powder and had bizarre red eyes. Red stuff dripped from them and from her blue lips. She wore a short black dress, torn in places.

“Are you one of the living or the dead?” The ghost carried an enormous shotgun.

“What?”

Before Daphne could react, the ghost girl pointed the gun and pulled the trigger. A spray of fine white powder shot out. Daphne closed her eyes to keep the powder from getting into them as the ghost girl ran out.

Daphne rushed to the door and closed it, locked it, and leaned her back against it just in case.

The ghost girl put her face to the window and screamed, “You are one of the dead! You hear me, Daphne Janus? You are not living! You are one of the dead!”

Daphne pulled at the curtain to block out the hideous face, but soon there were other faces, equally gruesome, peering in at her. Together they said, “You are not living! You are one of the dead!” The curtain panels wouldn’t close over the entire window.  There was a three-inch gap between them through which Daphne could still see the white faces and the red eyes and blue lips dripping with blood—fake blood, she reminded herself.

“You are not living! You are one of the dead!”

Daphne ran into the bathroom and closed the door. She stood there, shaking. What in the world had just happened? She looked at herself in the mirror. Baby powder. She was covered in baby powder. She might have laughed if she weren’t so upset. In the bathroom, she used her towel to wipe herself clean. Then she poked her head through the bathroom door. The faces at the window were gone.

She checked the lock on the door and dragged one of the striped chairs in front of it, just to be sure. Then she phoned Cam, ready to give him an earful, ready to demand he take her home on the first boat, but he didn’t answer, so she called the courtesy desk to leave messages for him and for Hortense Gray.

She turned on the television for a while, too keyed up for sleep. She waited for Cam for over an hour, checking the window now and then for those horrible faces. She took out her journal and tried to write, but nothing came to her. She just doodled all over the back of one page, making circles, then caterpillars, then leaves. At ten o’clock, she called Cam’s room, but there was still no answer.

At some point, with the TV on, as she allowed herself to think of her sister, Kara, and her brother, Joey, and then of sweet, sweet, Brock and all they might have had together, and as tears slid down the corners of her eyes, she fell asleep.

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 wasn’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.