Chapter 8

Ramona was up even before the sun had begun to streak the sky across the waters of the Atlantic. She stood outside the house, wrapped warmly in her winter coat, her hair blowing out behind her in long billowing waves.

Her breasts and vagina ached terribly, a raw reminder of the intruder and his brutal lust. In the house, Mrs. Whipple slept peacefully, unconcerned about the attacking trespasser. Her words still rang in Mona's ears: // he really wanted to kill you . . . just trying to scare the hell out of you that's all. Well, Mrs. Whipple, he's done more than that. Much more!

She longed to walk, but where to? To explore the island alone would be foolish at this point. Even to explore around the house would mean searing reminders of the rape from her ragged labia. She winced at the thought.

Owen Hansen would be here sometime this morning. He would come to see if she was all right. He didn't trust the judgment of Perk and Mrs. Whipple, and he'd told her not to even trust him. Maybe it was wise. But then if there was no one who cared, no friend . . .

From the distance she heard the putting motor of a launch. Her feet skipped over the vines and rocks that cluttered the path to the bank. At first, the sharp sting of her crotch halted her, but her feet wouldn't be stayed. By the time she reached the ledge overlooking the dock, her genitals were aflame and her breasts ached as if beaten from her unsteady bouncing over the rough turf.

Momentarily the burning sensation filled her and caused her vision to blur, as if she were all alone in a long dark tunnel receding from the world of sight and sound, touch and smell. Everything was so far away. Don't close your eyes, she told herself. Don't give in. It will pass.

"Miss Jahn! Ramona!" a voice echoed down the cavern of emptiness.

Slowly, the veil that had blurred her view slid away. She heard the sounds of the gulls and of scrambling feet growing closer. Someone was coming up over the rocky embankment.

"Ramona! Are you all right?" called a husky voice. A strong hand gripped her arm.

She looked up into the face of Owen Hansen. His dark eyes were clouded. He looked worried.

Then everything was all right. She could hear again, she could feel her legs beneath her, weak but standing, she could see his face clearly.

"Why didn't you answer?" he asked, looking into her face with concern.

"Answer?"

"When I called."

"I ... I didn't hear you," she stuttered, sharply aware of the scalding sensation between her thighs that forced her to stand with them apart.

"You're awfully pale," he said urgently. "Has anything happened?"

"Happened?" she returned dully, tears pricking the corners of her eyes.

"Something has. I know it!" he cried, gripping both her arms and looking at her so closely she dropped her eyes in shame.

"Mrs. Whipple will tell you," she said in a hoarse tone. "It wasn't important."

"Not important? To hell with Mrs. Whipple! What do you say about it?"

"I... it doesn't matter," she stammered, turning away.

He caught her and turned her to face him, causing her thighs to rub together. She caught her breath sharply and swayed.

"Something's wrong," he said. "We made a deal about my seeing that you were all right. Now I'm heah you seem reluctant to tell me what's going on. Why? Is it so bad?"

When she didn't answer but reached out to grasp his arm for support, he put his arms around her waist to hold her. Mona looked up at him unsteadily. His face registered genuine concern. She wondered if she should tell him, but feared he, too, wouldn't believe her.

"Bettah get you up to the house to lie down," he said, moving to take her in that direction.

"Oh, no. Please not yet!" she implored. "I . . . it's so nice out. I don't want to go in. The fresh air is good for me."

"Youah afraid of the house? Couldn't be in the daytime. Is it Mrs. Whipple you don't want to see?"

"Please, let's walk. I ... I haven't really seen the island yet."

"If you feel okay," he conceded kindly. "Oh, yes!"

They walked together around the southern curve of the island, where the house was situated well inland. The sun was above the water now, breaking it into millions of sparkling diamonds while the seagulls dipped down in graceful swoops and head-long dives for their morning fish and shell foods. It was peaceful and pleasant.

"Oh, it is a beautiful place, after all!" Mona cried ecstatically. "Aren't the gulls lovely? I never knew those birds were so big!"

They watched one gull swoop down in a head-long plunge into the ocean. In half a second he came plummeting upward in the same straight vertical drive, his direction reversed. A fat fish wriggled in his sturdy ivory bill. He brought it to the beach and stood there for a moment on a rock, as if to regain his breath. His gunmetal gray body was large and solid; there was a black streak across his dripping wings. His white head matted with moisture and his round black eyes sharp and glaring, he seemed to survey the land as if he were the proud sovereign of the domain. Then he was gone, soaring skyward with majestic grace.

"You will learn to appreciate the gulls much more if you stay here," Hansen returned with a smile. "They are the constant companions of lonely fishermen."

"Not like an albatross, I hope!"

"I suspect you read too much," the young man answered with a thoughtful grin. "Come along with me one day and learn through experience what the albatross' distant cousin is like. Rather think you might enjoy a holiday and learn to appreciate New England when this is all over."

Mona walked along, watching her feet, hoping it wasn't too noticeable that they were moving measurably apart in her stride.

"It would be fun," she said wondering if the day would ever come when she could take that holiday. Perhaps she would give up first and return to New York, though she knew if she did she could never return to New Hampshire or the seashore without thoughts that would send her scurrying homeward.

The chill wind of the eastward side blew against them. She felt it lick her legs and thighs with its cold tongue. It helped the burning sensation a little and she was grateful. They were at the rear of the house, an area overgrown with vines and bushes. Tall elms and maples obscured the windows on that side of the building. To Ramona it was just as well. She felt no warmth toward the ugly old mansion. She clung to it only because it had been her uncle's and now she could call it her own.

"Want to sit down theah?" asked Hansen, pointing out a mossy slope in a small cove. "It's usually a pretty soft cushion if you watch out for the rocks."

She nodded and let him help her down the short, steep ledge to the dark green slope. "It won't stain?"

"Haven't noticed that it does," he returned, "but you won't find a softer seat anywhere. Even in youah uncle's haunted palace."

Smiling gratefully, she lowered herself to the moss, trying to find a comfortable position. It was difficult, for every way she could think of sitting would create pressure on her raw labia. She finally settled on her knees, pretending to be interested in the rocky shore, picking up stones and pebbles to throw into the water.

Hansen continued to view her with concern.

"Are we on a first-name basis yet?" he questioned with a grin. "Didn't bothah you back there when I called you Ramona, did it?"

She shook her head.

"Mrs. Whipple doesn't call me anything but 'child' now and then. And being 'Miss' is terribly formal."

"Pretty name, Ramona," he mused. "Different."

"My father named me after some place he liked in the South Pacific during the war."

"At least, that's what he told youah mom, eh?" he said with a grin, "Never thought of that," Mona returned with a smile. "Maybe that's why she preferred calling me Mona for short. Only my father called me Ramona."

"Kind of sad, but very pretty . . . the sound, I mean."

He was leaning back on his elbows, looking out to sea, Mona noticed for the first time that he hadn't worn his usual loose-fitting dungarees and jacket. He wore trim black trousers that clung to his long, smooth-muscled legs and a jersey that stretched across his broad chest, a light blue wool mainliner over it. He'd even brushed his hair smoothly into place, though the sea breezes threatened to riffle it again. There was a hint of Old Spice on him too. Mona smiled quietly to herself. Wonder what that's all about, she pondered.

The wind died and the sun disappeared above the bank of clouds. Is the sky here always so leaden? She mused. The gulls sat quietly on the shore as if waiting for something.

"Looks like another squall coming up." Hansen said.

"Soon?"

"Soon enough," he answered absently. "Ramona? Or should I call you Mona?" "Whichever you like," she replied, looking at him.

"Promise to call me Owen?"

She looked into his laughing eyes. She still thought he wasn't handsome, but there was something appealing about him. He wasn't much taller than she, probably about five-ten or five-eleven. Still, he seemed bigger and stronger than Carl Richardson, for all the lawyer's height. There was something sturdy, strongly virile and masculine about this man.

Nodding in agreement, she responded, "Okay, Owen."

"Now that I've come out heah to see how you are-"

"And at the crack of dawn," she interrupted with a look of stern surprise.

"I've got a lot of work to do, young lady," he insisted. "Soonah I see to you, the soonah it gets done."

"Oh, I didn't mean to keep you from your work!" Mona protested.

"The soonah I'll get back heah in the evening to sec you again," he continued as if she hadn't interrupted him, a smile creeping across his face till the corners of his eyes wrinkled.

It was the first time she'd seen him smile so meaningfully. It was a pleasant smile and she realized he could be a very warm person to be with.

"You mind?" he asked seriously.

She shook her head and looked down at the rocks on the shore of the little cover. His hand reached out and touched her arm.

"Don't you know it's impolite to turn your back on people who are talking to you?" he teased.

"Won't you come sit down and try out these prize natural cushions?"

Ramona smiled back at him apologetically and he pulled her down beside him. She winced at the sudden disturbing of her sore crotch, then forced a smile and arranged her short skirt and coat around her legs as she hugged them gently to her, her thighs slightly parted to the cool air.

"You have absolutely no coloh," he chided. "Now are you going to tell me about last night or am I to listen to dull old Moll Whipple and conjecture about the rest?"

"What difference does it make?" she said with a shrug. "My uncle was murdered here, and what does Perkins care? He doesn't seem to be interested or even active in his role as sheriff or whatever he is."

"You'll get used to Perk. In his own quiet way, he usually comes through."

"He and his sister don't quite believe what I say about the intruder. They rather suspect he's a friendly New Englander and I'm a hare-brained, hysterical foreigner."

"You'll get used to that, too, if you stay around like your uncle did. After a while people will either accept you or tolerate you. Being tolerated isn't so bad. You get preference to outsidahs and strangahs aftah that."

"How comforting," she said with a wry grin, trying to move her hips to take the pressure off her vagina.

"You sure youah all right?" he persisted. "Look, if it has to do with last night, I don't think like Moll or Perk."

There was a leaden silence between them before she answered.

"It came again last night with the knife and threatened my life. A little while later, after Moll scared it away, it shot at me."

"You said 'it'," he told her. "You believe it's not human?"

"I don't know. It's big, wet, cold. It wears a long, leathery robe that rustles when it moves."

"The Lady of the Island?"

"No, definitely not," she said with finality.

"Not with the long, rustling robe?"

"It may not be human, but it's certainly not female, either."

"Youah talking in circles," he insisted.

"I'm saying that, dead or alive, it's not a woman."

"You must have good reason to say that."

"Forget about it, will you?" she cried in exasperation, starting to rise.

His hand caught her and she fell back onto the slope, her legs clamping over the burning wound of her slit.

"Ohhhh!" she cried, her eyes clenching with pain. Biting her lip against the tears, she tried to struggle to her feet.

"He hurt you, didn't he?" demanded the young man.

When she didn't answer, he repeated the question.

"Forget it!" she implored. "Forget it!" she implored.

"Why? Did you want it to happen? Are you glad of it?"

"No! No!" she cried vehemently, shaking her head.

"Did you tell Moll?"

"She wouldn't have believed it. She'd have thought I should have been able to fight him off!" She choked the words out, trying to hold back the tears of pain and humiliation. "I was so afraid! Petrified! When he put the blade of that knife on my neck, my muscles turned to liquid. They wouldn't respond. I couldn't fight, couldn't even scream. I didn't know if he was real or a ghost! I never believed in phantoms before, but everything here is so frightening, so horrible!"

The tears flowed freely down her cheeks then. She couldn't stop them. Her lower lip trembled as she kept her sobs stilled.

"It's all right," he tried to assure her, his big hands gripping her shoulders firmly. "I understand."

"Do you?" Mona whispered hoarsely. "Have you ever been terrified? Ever thought there really might be a world of the supernatural?"

"I think man hopes to kill his fear of the supernatural through destroying his belief in God," Owen said philosophically. "God represents the unknown, a world unexplored, unseen, yet always there. Kill Him and you've killed the demon specters of the unseen world too."

"Do you believe?"

"I don't know," he returned. "You think one ought to? Can a man really destroy all that the human mind and imagination have created and solidified through the centuries? Even if you kill the idea, do you kill the mind and imagination that created it? If there's a good God, one suspects, there's also the bad Satan, each with their cohorts. Legends, histories, jokes, songs, plays, moral lessons, laws, wisdom, and even science have had their foundations laid on the belief in the supernatural. We can deny it's existence now, thousands of years later, but can we destroy it without destroying the framework of our existence and the elements of man's brain which created and nurtured it?"

"As long as we live, then," she said, "There'll be doubts and half-beliefs that maybe there are such creatures as ghosts and other specters?"

Owen shrugged his shoulders.

"Who's to know? So long as there's a church, a law, a set of moral codes, someone will wonder and suggest it to others to speculate."

"You know, Mr. Hansen," Mona said with a smile, "You've made me feel better already."

"Wish I could say the same for you," he said with a morose look. "You still call me Mister Hansen when we'd agreed on Owen. And worse, I must leave you in the care of a skeptical old woman who slept through your struggles and pain last night."

Mona hung her head as she knelt before him, thighs parted, resting her arms on his uplifted knees. She hated to discuss it. Remembering the terror of it all just made it worse. It made her more conscious of the pain in her breasts and groin.

His hand gently lifted her chin.

"It shouldn't have been this way," he whispered. "If I'd only known, I wouldn't have let it happen."

"Why should you care?" she murmured. "I'm a stranger."

"Not any more, youah not. Not to me, anyway, and you won't remain a strangah to othahs heah, eithah, if I can help it."

Their eyes met and she felt something powerful and warm in them. His Old Spice smelled so good, and his hands were so firm, yet, so gentle. He came forward and encircled her in his arms. Never had she felt so safe and secure, even here in this dreadful place.

His mouth was gentle and her lips needed no urging to welcome his searching tongue. The island slipped away with the call of the gulls and she found the peace and security she'd sought in his strong embrace. Nothing had ever seemed so perfect to her before. She didn't want to leave his arms.

For a moment she thought she would never again be afraid. But then he pulled her down beside him in the moss and reality was with her again.

"Auuggghh!" she moaned at the rubbing of her firm flesh upon the torn fragility of her loins.

"I hurt you," he said with a worried look.

"It's not you," she told him. "Not you!"

"I shouldn't have brought you here," he said with conviction. "Should have been firmer about it."

"No I would have come by any means I could," she insisted.

"But this didn't have to be! It shouldn't have been!"

"How could you have prevented it?" demanded Mona.

"I don't know," he returned. "But I ... I just shouldn't have let it!"

He seemed a perturbed man who wished to undo what he'd had no control over. She stroked his cheek comfortingly. It was over and done. She just wanted to forget. Forget!

Smiling sadly she looked deeply into his eyes, trying to tell him what her words couldn't. His fingers played her hair and his lips sought the sweet salts of her face and neck.

Why did it feel right with him like it had with Danny and Ray? Even he said not to trust him. Would he, too, betray her? Would he take her love and leave her? Perhaps like Carl all he wanted was her body. What then?

They lay for a long while together, talking and making love. His kisses were loving and kind. Could they be false? His hands gently caressed the bruised swells of her breasts. Could they hurt her as well?

The longer they stayed there together the more his lips and fingers sought her, tried to reach her breasts and crotch. How long could she forestall his desires? Inside her taunted the fear that he only wanted her as a female not as a person.

Oh, please! I'm so tired of playing, of running. God! Help me!

"I hope I'm not disturbing anything!" boomed a deep voice behind them.

They sat up quickly, Mona scrambling to her feet to avoid further irritation to her loins. There on the embankment behind them stood the formidable Mrs. Whipple, her gray hair tightly drawn into a bun at the nape of her neck, her lips drawn in a thin tight line. Her eyes were cold steel as she spoke, her arms akimbo as if facing truant children in her classroom.

"Owen, you always were good at playing around. Too bad you can't do a lick of work as well. I told you to stay away for a reason and I meant it."

"Look, Moll," he tried to tell her. "We're two grown people. You may be used to dominating others around heah, but not out-sidahs."

"You'hr right, Owen," she answered. "You always were an out-sidah. I was trying to help Miss Jahn, but she apparently doesn't respect the wisdom of those older and wiser than she. Probably the reason she infuriated the trespasser to shoot at her last night or didn't she tell you?"

She looked down at Ramona as if she could knock her down with a simple stare. The girl returned her steady gaze defiantly, yet there were no words that the omnipresent figure on the hill would listen to so she didn't bother to speak.

"If I'd known you were the type of girl who fools around with strangehs," the woman accused, "I never would have offehed my friendship or protection. You apparently don't need it. Staying out heah alone with that fake lawyer and last night making that harmless trespasser use gunshots to frighten you away,"

"What? What do you mean, 'fake lawyer?' " demanded Mona. "I was stranded out here with him. I never intended to be alone with him for the night!"

"Hah! A likely story!" spat the woman and turned on her heel. "But-!"

"Let her go!" Owen insisted. "She never would listen to reason. I could tell her I was responsible for that first night with the lawyeh and she would just laugh, saying it was because I wanted my fun now. A share of the profits, you might say."

"Do you?" Mona asked skeptically. "You said you should have prevented my ever coming here. Is it true you could have?"

"Mona, you don't think I. . ." he asked, staring at her numbly.

"You told me not to trust you either," she said. "Now what? No one for a friend. What do I do? Sell out? Abandon this place? Why is everyone intent on getting rid of me?"

"Mona! Mona!" he called after her as she climbed the embankment and ran off towards the house. But she wouldn't stop. She was deaf to him now.